Final Fantasy XIII 1. happy little murderer

**(2,386 Words. Hoorah) Well here is the first chapter of my new story, Decieving love. Now I'm going to hope for a miracule and hope that this story can actually get somewhat popular. And maybe get a review, for I've got 8 others and all together only have 3 reviews, which made my friend laugh at me.**

**The concept for this story came into my head, and I thought it was brilliant, so I expanded on it and began writing it the day of it's creation, that was two days ago, and now I"m putting it up and I've already got a bunch of scenes planned. awesome how fast that happened.**

**But anyway, won't update for a little bit, because I do have two assignments to do, which I'll start doing right after this. But who cares about that,**

**Reviews will be extremely appreciated and I hope you enjoy my baby (anyone else laughing in their heads everytime the I say hope?)**

**Disclaimer: Damn don't you wish we owned ffxiii? But unfounately square enix does (let's steal it!)**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love<span>

Chapter 1: Happy little murderer

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><p>Lightning crept around the darkened alleyways, keeping an eye out for any movement whatsoever. She held her gunblade at the ready, if the need to use it came to rise. This mission was not a simple one, for even she was having trouble.<p>

She'd been told, that a murder had occured near new bodhum and more had happened not so long afterwards, both in the same fashion. The victims had their throats slashed open, repeatively. Whoever had killed them was even less sane then other murderers, For the culprit had cut words into the arms of the corpses. The last one had read "I will creep up to love in it's sleep and pull out it's beating heart." So yes, each victim had a messed up saying about love on their arms, no matter how you looked at it that was messed up. At the moment, she was on the trail of this twisted killer. So far she was in knowledge that they had killed at least nine people, for that's how many had been killed in the same way, but it could be more, you couldn't say that was all, it was only how many people had been killed in that one way. Her squad had broken into the place where the murderer was about to take another victims life, but the person was saved at the last minute, for the attacker took their exit by diving out the closest window.

And so that was how Lightning got into this current situation, chasing an unknown person through the shadows of a heavily populated area, though from sheer luck they were trapped in a place where most likely they were the only ones around. Lightning didn't have much to go off, but she had gotten a good enough view of them to know who she must be after, so if she spotted them, it would make things much more easier. It was a woman who in appearances could be younger then her, which had taken her by surprise for that was something uncommon, if she ever went after people younger then her, never would it be for such a serious offence. The girl had Aqua green hair, at a short length about the same as her own, purely straight with streaks of darker greens and blues. She'd been wearing a black cloak around her, which must have been torn by now, Light had already found pieces of black material on the ground. But that's what you get for jumping out a shut window. You'd think the material would help the soldier find her, but that wasn't the story.

The main problem with this woman, she was choosing to do whatever was the thing Lightning had thought she would be least likely to do, and she hadn't done it once, she was doing it repeatively. Lightning was good in a chase, but she'd never encountered a person like this, every sighting only lasted for a second, and then she was gone. This woman wasn't being repeative in actions, she made no screw ups, everything was pulled off pefectly, so much so that even Lightning couldn't do a thing. For someone so young to be able to beat her in so many ways in such a short time, she could be nothing less than a genius at this, to be able to beat someone so good at what they do.

This chase had been going on for a damn long time, she could feel its taking a toll on her. Not like she wasn't fit, but after some time she wouldn't be able to take much more of this, just had to hope that she would have caught her target by then. Luckily no civilians were near here, that could cause problems. But Lightning forced the thoughts of her annoyances out of her head, for now she had much more serious things to think about. she had to catch the girl, she was extremely dangerous, she couldn't be allowed to stay a free person. So the woman raced along alleyway to alleyway in the back streets of this dark place. From each corner she thought she had seen her, but that was just her mind playing tricks on her. The sightings had stopped, but she forced herself not to panic, she couldn't let herself in a time like this.

Light almost forgot to breathe when she caught sight of the woman. She became as quiet as she could, to creep up to her without gaining her attention, sticking even closer to the shadows. But it seems that even that was a failure. This strange woman wasn't moving from where she was, stuck gazing into the stary night, Lightning thought it so stupid, believeing that finally she made a mistake. But the soildier was wrong, She had been waiting for her.

"It's a nice night, isn't it soldier girl?" She questioned almost innocently in a chillingly familiar voice.

For a second Lightning became unfocused, her mind going straight to figure out where she had heard the voice before. The killer used this as her chance. She turned around, giving a twisted smile to the strawberry blonde woman, before throwing a knife at her. Light rolled to the side, dodging successfully. But at the end of the roll a hard kick that was aimed at her head hit her directly, it had been timed perfectly. The older woman felt disorientated, another kick was aimed at the back of her head, again perfect. Her sight went black, with the sound of insane laughter ringing in her ears.

_"Hey, do you want to come with me?"_

_A blury memory came into her head, of a time she couldn't remember._

_A young girl sat on a swing gazing up at the older woman, another girl sat playing with toys not so far away._

_"No." The child's answered, without much of a thought._

_"No? Why not?" The older woman was startled by the notion of the kid saying such to her._

_"Just no." The little girl didn't say anymore than that._

_"But you always want to come with me, why not now?" The older one went on questioning, but a reply wasn't giving for a harsh voice cut into the conversation,_

_"Just take the other one why don't you!" They complained gruffly._

_A tall woman nearby yelled at the other, growling like an angry dog, The smaller woman turned back in annoyance,_

_"What? But she's not the strong one!"_

_"Didn't you say they were smart as all hell?" They growled._

_"Fine, come on lets go then." The small woman held out her hand to the other child, who took it happily leaving her toys for the other to pick up._

_In the blur of a memory, it could be seen a litlle girl walking off with two older woman, whoever they were was lost to the past._

Lightning woke up with a start, lifting herself up, before feeling tremendous pain from her head and for some reason her leg, and almost fell back down. She put her hand to her head and felt the spot where she had been hit, damn was she feeling the pain at the moment. She looked down to see why her leg was in pain as well. She saw a drop of blood, and was stuck figuring out how that had happened.

"I wouldn't move if I was you" Someone informed her.

She moved her sights to see who they were and was nothing less than shocked to find her target sitting on a crate not so far away. She had her legs crossed and was resting her head on her palms. She appeared so calm for someone in a situation such as this, but the reasons for her doing so was quickly reveiled.

"I used a type of poison soldier, it's not deadly in small doses, but will still restrict movement. I would say you wouldn't be able to move your left leg, after all that's where the needle went in." She gave a smile at the venomous glare the other woman returned to her.

"If you want to stay nice and healthy, keep as still as possible until someone can find you. That would be the best option. Sorry if you'd rather go after me, but not to mention what I've already said, you do have a head injury." She paused looking to the side with a stupid expression, "Guess I hit harder than intended, probably gonna make one hell of a bruise." She shrugged.

Lightning did nothing else but keep up the scowl, slowly she could feel the numbness leaving, but the pace at which it did was almost infuriating. At this point she was still unable to feel her leg, so she would have to wait for the feeling to return before she could even make an attempt at standing back up. And all the while would have to keep up the illusion that she was still immobilised. Damn was this girl predicting what would be most annoying to her.

"Now I bet I know what you're thinking," Light heard her half sane laugh. "Something along the lines of damn this girl is annoying!" She did the laugh again. "Well I guess that's because I do my research."

"What?"

"If someone that could eventually be after me, gets annoyed easily; why not find out good ways to piss them off?" She gave another shrug.

The young woman got up off the crate. Her expression at polar opposites to the other. She knelt down close, not fearing the close proximity, even if the woman was slowly regaining her mobility. From this closeness Light could make out her face far more easily, if only this place wasn't covered in shadows. She had what appeared to be a lip piecing, on the lower left side of her mouth, What stupidity for someone with a life like hers to have a permanent mark on her like that. Truly now she could see that this girl was younger than her, at this closeness it was impossible to miss.

"Lightning isn' it?" She whispered in a finally not happy voice. "You're fun to mess with, didn't think you would." She spoke with the most perculiar tone.

"Sorry for this, I can understand you'd really like to catch me. But if it makes you feel any better, I can say that I will never hurt the people you care about." She said it completely sincerely.

She got up to move away but the other yelled at her in a most harsh tone,

"How do you know who they are!"

The younger one turned back at her from already having been walking away,

"Like I said, I do my research. Piece of advice, always Keep in mind who could be listening, cause you never know." She skipped away happily after answering in the most annoying sing song voice.

Lightning tried to get up and go after her, but she found her leg was still unable to move, and the pain in her head wasn't the slightest bit better, But she persisted in trying. But for sure murderer had been right in telling her to restrict her movements, for soon she found herself blacking out once again.

Lightning woke up hours later in the Guardians Corps infirmary. Her head had been bandaged, for she'd been hit rather hard. As well as the bandage her body had been drained of the poison as best could be done, any that remained would get out of the body naturally and shouldn't cause any negative effects until it does so. She had been told to stay for longer, but she ignored the nurses pleas and left not long after she'd regained consiousness. Despite the insanely early hour of the morning.

She of course went straight home. Her head felt like it was spinning by the time she got back, so she put a hand against a wall to steady herself. Her leg felt plainly weird, not all the feeling had returned to it.

"Damn," She muttered under her breath.

Never had someone managed to get to her so fast, and perfectly screw her over to add to that. Feeling like shit right now wasn't helping things. How did she manage to pull all that off perfectly? If she hadn't stopped the running Lightning wouldn't have caught up to her. And the last part, what kind of person stays around and waits for the person after them to wake up. It's just insane, even if the other couldn't move, it's still plain insane. What does it take for someone of that age to become so twisted? But Lightning forced herself to get it out if her head, for now she didn't need to be stuck confusing herself over this. She needed rest right now, and she could guess that she certainly would be forced to take time off, a head injury isn't something to be taken lightly.

Before she went to her room she peaked into Serah's room to see if she was fine. She was sleeping on top of her covers with her clothes still on. Probably meaning she'd gotten home late, not as late as the other, but still late. With that she went to her room and crashed on the bed, she felt exhausted from all what had happened today. She more than needed this.

But one thought crept into her mind before sleep over took her, the criminal, why did she seem so familiar?

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><p><strong>Wasn't that fun?, I like the murderer, to be honest she looks adorable, strange thing to say about someone that finds it fun to slit peoples throats, but anyway.<strong>

**If anyone want's to mention something from either games, don't say a thing about xiii-2, my sister is not very far in it, and I haven't touched it. So I don't want accidental spoilers**

**I highly reccomend you to review, I'm sort of depressed at the moment, and considering how much I love writing and this story, a review will help my sanity heaps. It doesn't matter whether you hate it or love it, just please, I would love you if you do.**

**Thank you for reading.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	2. report

**(3,635 words) Blaugh, I'm done two of my assignments, hoorah, and I've got around half of another one to do and am getting another one soon, damn it school is annoying. So Jess don't complain that REI is not being updated, i've got more important things than fanfiction sadly enough. Writing this is my reward for finishing my english assignment. yay. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I no own ffxiii ( but I wish i did cause then Serah would be mine)**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love<span>

Chapter 2: Report

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><p>Lightning woke up to the sun's rays creeping in and assaulting her eyes. She flipped in her bed avoiding it, her head was still feeling the pain it'd been delivered last night. It wasn't as bad, it had subdued much from before, she was glad for that. The slight numbness in her leg had disappeared, so she wouldn't have trouble moving now. So all was well except the ringing in her head that refused to go away.<p>

Though it wasn't something she usually did, she decided to try and get as much sleep as she could. Like that would be easy, she felt like shit, which in turn put her in a bad mood, which then made it a pain to get to sleep. The sun coming in through the windows sure wasn't assisting this at all.

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><p>After what felt like an eternity but probably hadn't been much at all, loud footsteps snapped her away from her attempt at sleeping, but what annoyed her more then being woken up , was who had done it; footsteps that loud could only be from one person.<p>

The door to her room opened up and before who had done it could say a word she immediatly said,

"Out!"

"Oh, come on Sis, You don't have to all mean like that." Snow joked from the doorway.

Light remembered to give him a nice little glare.

Snow sighed, "Just wanted to know why you were still here, you're usually gone heaps before anyone is awake." He paused for a second. "So what happened to your head?" Came the obvious question.

Light put a hand to the bandage wrapped around her fore head, she had almost forgotten it was there, someway or another.

"Why does it matter?" She growled, she was in a dangerous mood at the moment. But Snow didn't seem to notice.

"I'm allowed to wonder aren't I?" He shrugged. "Nothing wrong with that"

'It is when I'm in a bad mood' She said in her head.

"Can't you just leave?"

"I will when you tell me why there is a bandage on you're head." He half laughed, "Something musta happened."

That's it, Lightning was sick of this. But she had to come up with another solution to the problem then punching him, her head was ringing and she doubted she'd be able to get up properly without falling back down. Damn

"Go away or I'm going to throw a lamp at your head."

"What?" He exclaimed in confusion, not fully expecting her to say that, "A lamp?"

"Yes a lamp, can you leave now!" She snapped.

"You're not really going to throw a lamp are you?" Still not taking full belief that she was going to do it.

Finally deciding she was thoroughly sick of him, she did as she said, taking the lamp off the bed side table and threw it at his direction.

"Holy s.." He dodged it as fast as he could, leaving the smashed lamp next to the doorway, with him staring blankly at it.

"Okay so you weren't kidding." He laughed unsteadily looking at the broken shards, "Guess that means I should leave then."

"Took you long enough," Light muttered angrily.

Footsteps sounded from nearby and Light could make out Another conversation started, as she was trying to get back to sleep already it wasn't clear.

"What was that?" Someone questioned in a panicking voice

"Oh, hi I just had a lamp thrown at me." Snow Laughed.

"A lamp?" The other sounded perplexed but made a sound that must have meant they'd quickly figured it out.

For someone went and stormed into Light's room, another distraction from her sleep.

"Lightning! why did you throw a lamp at him!" Serah yelled from next to her, sounding bewilded, but most likely mainly from the fact that it was a lamp.

Light opened her eyes when water starting dropping on her, seeing that Serah's hair was soaked, obviously coming from just having a shower.

"I'm tired. And Snow's annoying." She got out between wiping the water droplets off her, which weren't anything else from annoying themselves. Serah emmited a loud sigh,

"Oh Light, it's still overboared."

Snow laughed quietly from where he was near the door, finding it a funny sight the younger girl scolding her older sister, Light overheard it and sent him another venomous scowl.

"What do you want me to do it again?" She asked evily,

"Light!" Serah yelled again, "Stop it." She pleaded.

This whole situation was plain bothering for her, all she wanted to do was sleep.

"Why do you have a bandage on your head?" Serah said getting off topic,

Light looked up to see the sincere worry in her little sister's eyes.

"I hurt myself alright."

Serah gave another sigh as a reaction,"I'm not going to get much of an answer am I?"

"Well if I got a lamp aimed at my head I would say you're going to get silence." Snow chuckled from the doorway.

Serah shook her head and stepped over to near Snow, she said a quick bye to her sister and the two left the room.

So now Light was able to attempt to sleep, problem with that was because her little soldier habits that made her always wake up at dawn; she couldn't get herself to sleep at all now. But none the less, she made the attempt, even if she failed massively.

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><p>As she had predicted, she was forced to take time off, which was starting to put her in a bad mood, well, one worse then usual. The damage done to her head had been worse then first thought, so it took awhile for the pain to leave, and even after it did she still had a dizzy feeling.<p>

When she was no longer forced to take time, off, she wasn't allowed to go on field missions straight off, thanks to her still having a dizzy feeling from her head injury. The first thing she had to do was report what had happened on her last mission. For she had not already done that.

When she was going to where she had to go, she passed by a strange looking woman sitting on a chair outside the room. She had pale blonde hair, with streaks of darker colours running through it. She was a plain looking woman, even what she wore was. She wasn't quite old, but not young either, around middle age most likely. She had a finger wrapping around the pendant on the necklace she was wearing, slightly obscuring the view of dark marks on her neck. They appeared to be bruises. When Lightning went closer, as she did have to go in the room right next to where this woman was sitting, She then saw that she had a slash mark on her neck. She hid her surprise over sighting it, she had a feeling how that must of happened.

The woman lifted her head and met the soldier's gaze, the blonde woman was jolted for a second but calmed down fast, she hadn't noticed anyone else had been near her. The strange thing was that all Light noticed was that startling blue of her eyes. She'd given off such a dull aura, that her eyes seemed extremely out of place.

"Ah, sorry," She apologised for having scared her just then.

"No it's fine," She started, "I'd do that near anyone, guess I'm easy to scare." The soldier noticed the high pitch of her voice, it to was seeming out of place, coming from someone of her appearance. You'd expect a person with that cute kind of feeling to have such a voice.

"Lieutenant!" Someone from the other room interupted anything else that could have been said.

The person who had said that fully opened the door to the room and moved to the side ushering for her to enter. She did as he wanted and he quickly got straight to talking about what he needed to know.

"I know you know what we need from you, so best get straight to it then." He commanded with his raspy yet strong voice.

Light hid a sigh, usually the it's youth who are impatient, this man sure wasn't that, that shown from the small strands of grey between the many strands of black. But this guy's impatience was making itself clear already.

She thought for a second on where to start, her memory wasn't the clearest on it, and she knew she had to say every detail she could.

"I remember chasing after her for a very long time. My squad split up to search for her after she'd exited from the window. But I don't think they got anywhere close to where she was." She paused trying to remember more.

"She'd been wearing a coat of sorts, I saw pieces of it on the ground, so it must have been ripped by the broken window shards."

"Yes, there was a piece of torn material found on the window when others were sent to investigate the victims apartment." He stopped himself then, "Ah, sorry I didn't mean to interupt. Go on" He waved his hand and Light went on.

"I had trouble catching up to her, She was chosing the thing I'd expected she would do the least repeatively."

"Wouldn't she repeat herself at some point?" The older man inquired, his expression one showing puzzlement.

"No, she wasn't doing that at all, if she had I would have caught up." The soldier shook her head.

The other looked away in thought, "It's amazing that one so young managed to dupe a whole squad of soldiers. They've got a good brain on them that's for sure, too bad they've put it to such a use." He returned his gaze to the woman in front of him.

"Lieutenant, how did you catch up to her?" He questioned, from what she had said it made sense for him to be curious about it.

"She'd stopped running, I encounted her in one of the more open part of the backstreets." She paused after saying it and watched as the man's expression change to one of purer confusion,

"She was looking up at the stars I'm pretty sure." Adding in another part, making the other's expression even more confused.

"Now I'm not too sure I should have called her smart." He shook his head.

"Not really, she knew I was there, and was prepared for any attack I would have done. She made me put my guard down by making me think she had done so."

"Well this is getting stranger," He pinched the bridge of his nose, "What did she do after 'looking at stars'?"

"She threw a knife at me."

His expression showed something else reminisant of annoyance.

"Damn, hidden weapons hah? Not good for others." He sighed feeling peeved. "So what else happened after she threw the knife?"

"I rolled to dodge but at the end of the dodge she came up and kicked me in the head, first at the front then the back. It knocked me out." She explained simply.

"So that would be the source of your head injury." Saying the obvious.

"Yes that would be it," She absentmindedly touched where she had been hit, the second kick had been harder, she knew that was the truth, she didn't just think that because her head had already been ringing.

"Can you remember what was going on exactly when you regained conciousness?"

"Yes. She was still there, for whatever reason she had stayed near me for the whole time. I don't have a clue how long I was out. I can remember she was sitting on something not so far away, my memories fuzzy, so I don't remember what it was."

"Right." He nodded

"She told me not to move because she'd used some type of poison. I knew she wasn't making that part up, I couldn't feel my leg at all so she must have done something. The stange part was that she had sounded concerned about me, even though she was the one who had done it."

If she'd thought the man had looked confused, well before couldn't compare to the look on his face at the moment. It was the emboddiment of confusion.

"Why would she be concerned?" He whispered under his breath, He wasn't very good at keeping his personal thoughts away from his work. Most men Lightning had met with a job like his would stay silent while the other was talking, and afterwards when they would speak again no emotion showed.

"I don't really know a thing about her, with the lack of knowledge I can't really say why she had been."

"That'll be right, Did anything else happen after all of this?" He questioned her again.

"She laughed about something to do with that she 'does her research' and went and disappeared. I don't remember much else."

The oldish man shook his head thinking about all what she said. It certainly would make someone curious about who this woman was, she was something else that's for sure.

"So that's all. Well there is something that I think I should mention, that part where you said that she had said something about her 'doing her research' makes this make more sense."

"What is it sir?"

"It's about that poison she used, there is um.. some perculiar things about it." He began, "The way it works is it only effects certain parts of someone's blood. You weren't the only one she used it on you see, so that's how we've managed to learn that much about it, but.. from the looks of things it would only work on people with a specific blood type."

He waited for that information to sink in,

"So she knows my blood type?" Yeah..ok? when she'd said she did her research, she sure made sure to find out a lot.

"That would be right, and as I said, you weren't the only one it had gotten used on. After you'd been found unconscious we also found the rest of the squad. Some had been knocked out and some of them had had the poison used on them. So it looks like she is aware of plenty of the soldiers blood types. So it would make one think she has access to files that should only be accessible to the Guardian Corp."

'Damn this girl is proving to make herself an annoyance.'

"I just wanted you to know that, it's a strange thing after all. I've only seen something similar once before."

"You've seen it before?" The soldier asked, having curiosity about the last thing he'd said.

"Uh, yeah, Sort of. Though I didn't actually see it, I heard about it. I was only a kid then, this would have been before your time. It was a group of people who used a similar type of poison, the similarities between the two is scary, I have no idea where this girl could have learnt about it. I have this feeling that she may know of those people, and that's how she came to know about this type of poison."

"If that's true then how did she find out about them?"

"That I would have no idea, it may not be true, just a feeling I have. Anyway, you have no need to be here anymore, You can leave now." He waved his hand at the door signiling for her to leave. She did as he said and left.

Outside the door, the woman she had seen before was still in the same position on the seat, twirling her fingers around the pendant on her neaklace. She looked up at Lightning as she left, giving her a small smile with a sad look in her eyes. She stayed very silent.

As Lightning left this woman was told to go into the room. Lightning starting thinking what had slipped into her mind before, if this woman was the victim that had almost been killed by that serial killer not so long ago, the one that had been saved. She hadn't gotten a very good look of the victim on that night, but it made sense that this was her, it seemed likely with the bruising and the cut on her neck.

She wanted to confirm it, it didn't seem like she'd just be gone and told it, not now at least. Despite knowing that she was in no way allowed to, she stood close to the door, eavesdropping on what was inside.

"Hello miss, I'm David Ravus. I would say it's nice to meet you but this situation doesn't call for such." He greeted, and made Lightning wonder why he had introduced himself to this woman and not to her, she'd spent that entire time having no idea who he was.

"Um.. yeah," she stutted,

"What is your name?" David asked her seriously.

She stayed silent for a minute, before making some sounds near impossible to understand,

"Um, I'm...Anna." The tone of voice she used made it sound like a lie, but why would she have done that? What reason did she have?

"Hmm, Anna eh?" Maybe he had caught onto that as well.

"Did you have any previous connection to this girl, do you know anything about her. Would she have a reason to try and kill you like she almost did." He was talking far more seriously then he had with Lightning.

Anna made more stammering sounds, which Light couldn't make out if she was saying proper words at all.

"Yes" Her voice quivered as she spoke.

"Hmm, is that so?" David hid the interest in his voice, but the one eavesdropping in on this caught it. "How do you know her?"

"It's a long story, I really don't want to go into it. It's for the best." Her voice still with the faultering tone.

"It'll be best if you do, knowing as much about her as possible would be a massive asset."

"But you don't know her do you? Knowing anything about her is a bad thing when it's to do with Arianna!" Her voice droping the faultering tone and became loud, but filled with hints of fear.

"Arianna? So that's her name,"

"Oh crap I said it didn't I?" She panicked, "I am so dead, I am so dead, I am so dead!"

"Calm down! You're going to be put under the protection of the Guardian Corp, if there is the chance she'll come back to attack you it would be for the best."

Anna turned silent again, losing the loudnes of her voice,

"She's beat you once, what makes you think she can't do it again. She may not be fast, or strong, but that girl is smart, she can break down someones strategies when she barely knows a single thing about a person, and if she does then you can expect it won't be possible to do a thing to her. How do you think you're suposed to beat a person like that!?" She sounded like she was near tears.

David sighed quitely, "Just have to find a way."

Anna made another stuttering sound,

"The only way she'll do that is if she gives herself up, but what kind of person would do that, after having done what she has done?"

"I don't know," It was getting increasingly harder to understand them.

"Exactly" It sounded like she was moving towards the door, so lightning decided to do the smart thing and get out of here as fast as she could. She got far enough away when the door was open so that David wouldn't have seen her ( which she could hear him yelling at Anna for leaving before she was suposed to) But Anna would have figured that she'd been near enough to have heard that conversation, her expression confirmed that thought. She directed her cerulean gaze to the ground and hurried past the pink haired soldier, mumbling under her breath something that Lightning just caught.

"Damn Am I glad I didn't say it."

Didn't say it? Didn't say what?

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><p><strong>Not much but's it's something, Actually now I think I want to throw a lamp at Snow (it's what I get for having a personality smack bam in the middle of the two sisters)<strong>

**Review or I shall go back in time and set a mannangal on your mother, for the people who know what that is, you will understand why this threat is so evil; for those who don't, search it up if you dare.**

**Thanks for reading**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	3. passing the time

**(1,037 words) say hi to my midgety chapter of midgety awesomeness. Yes this is damn short, why? because I couldn't think of what to write for this chapter. I have an idea for the next and the one after that. The reason this chapter exists at all was because there was this awesome thing that I decided I would write in the fifth chapter, and I was being stubborn that it must be in the fifth chapter. It's the type of thing that you will either call me evil for, or a total genius. And whatever it is, you will have to wait. until then, enjoy.**

**Discliamer: I no own ff**

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><p><span>3) passing the time<span>

Serah looked up from her drink to see her sister crashing exhausted onto the couch.

"You alright?" She asked as she put down her drink.

Lightning wiped the sweat from her forehead, she didn't look alright.

"How would you feel if you got stuck looking after rookies on a day like this?" She said without looking up, intead laying down and resting her head on a cushion.

"Not good?" She had no idea personally what that must have been like, but the other did look like a mess, and to add to that did look even more angry than usually.

Today had been a stinking hot day, even for Pulse. It was showing itself to be a land of extremes in almost every meaning of the word, that included the weather. Just yesturday it had been pouring, so everyone had run into the stable houses and attempted to stay dry. Today it had switched to the opposite, A burning sun shown high in the sky without a cloud to disturb it's domain. Serah had ended class early because things had gotten too hot to stand it anymore. The kids had called her 'meanie miss Farron' a record amount of times for not letting them go. But in the end she listened to the complaints, she couldn't stand the heat either. Obviously this day had been tougher on Light, The few corp members around had been stuck on monster look-out for the day. It had been much hotter out there than where Serah had been.

After she finished the remainder of her drink she poured water into a new cup and walked over to her sister, who was starting to doze off on the couch. She rested the cold cup on her forehead to get her to wake up. Light's eyelids twitched at the sudden temperature change on her forehead, before opening them to reaveal what was causing it. Serah took the drink off fast as Light almost swiped at it.

"Oi, don't do that! you could break it, we don't have many." The younger sister scolded her.

Light blinked a couple times, she felt dazed. Maybe her head was still hurt, but she doubted it; she'd gotten the injury around three weeks ago, she was sure it had healed by now. It could just be the heat had gotten to her. When she had gotten her mind to work proper again she looked up at Serah's smiling face, before down to her hand which was holding the glass of water.

"Here, you need it," She held it out closer for the other to reach it.

Light grasped for it, her head feeling like it was spinning. She'd been in the sun for far too long. The glass felt like it was frozen as it touched her warm palm, as she downed the drink she felt the same but on a higher level.

"That any better?" Serah asked as she took back the empty cup, Giving a small smile to Light. Who in her thoughts honestly looked like she was about to collapse.

"A little," She replied, actually part of her felt like she was frozen and the rest like it was about to melt. It wasn't the nicest of feelings. She layed her head back down as Serah returned to the kitchen and put the cup down near the sink.

"So where is the idiot right now?" She asked from across the room.

Serah realeased a quite sigh, she had learnt to ignore her sister constantly calling her fiance an idiot. At least she only half meant it some what now, unlike when they'd first met.

"Snow's helping fix the house that got half of it destroyed by an ugallu last week. It's almost done apparently, the walls are fine but the roof keeps deciding it doesn't want to stay up." Serah answered the question.

Light didn't say anything else, she rolled around on the couch and made the attempt to sleep. Her younger sister smiled back at her, she wouldn't disturb her now, she needed the rest.

though now she realised she didn't have anything else to do today, how on earth was she supposed to pass the time. She didn't feeling like going and having a nap, her room got extremly stuffy at this time of the day anyway.

So she found herself walking outside trying to see if she could find anything to do, but as she thought would be the case, she found nothing. So she sat down near the beach's edge under the shade of one of the trees, trying to dodge what sunlight she could. It was afternoon now and wasn't as strong as it had been earlier, but it was still burning hot. The water lapped the shore near her feet as she listened to each passing wave. Everytime a big wave came up the water went up further and covered the bottoms of her shoes, she wasn't completely happy that she couldn't feel it. The hot days turned the water to absuloutely freezing, but it would have been refreshing from all the heat battering down.

She was about to edge closer to where the water ended but then she heard the sound of feet shufferling behind her. She twisted herself around to see a blondish woman making her way over to from what it looked like in the direction she was going over to a soldier sitting on a rock not so far away. The woman looked immediately startled when she noticed her looking up at her, She raised her hands to her face and started stammering acting rather flusted.

"I..um..sorry..um" was the only thing that resembled words that came out of her mouth, before she fasterned her pace over to where the soldier was. She was right that that was where she was heading.

She was acting so strange just then, it was..worrying?

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><p><strong>Pulse is Australia, it has stupid weather, and the people there have thick Australians accents, it is Australia. By the way, I'm mostly saying this to anyone who might be american and reading this story, but we don't all have accents like that. We do but not so thick. plus it's not always hot, it was raining this morning and it was cold and grey, and as I write this it is all sunny again. Our weather is stupid and unppredictable, I expect Pulse's is similar.<strong>

**Reviews will be appreciated more than you know and shall help my sanity.**

**Thanks for reading.**


	4. patrol

**(2,000 words, yes exactly that amount) Well I'm done my assignments so I can do this now, hoorah. I named the evil voice in my head after Arianna, I was very bored.**

**Disclaimer: Oh yes I own this don't I? (voice dripping with sarcasm)**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love<span>

Chapter 4: Patrol

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><p>Lightning was in a bad mood, an extremely bad one. She'd been in it all day. Firstly she'd been woken up in an insanely early hour of the morning by the idiot and his group returning home later than usual. And then after that she hadn't managed to get to sleep at all. So she had gotten up for work tired as hell, and that had just been the start.<p>

The first half of her day was spent doing the paper work that came with her rank. She hated that part, being stuck in a stuffy room all day was not her style. She much prefered the practical part, which for her skills she was allowed to do more than others of the same rank as her.

She rubbed the sore hand of hers, the aching pain had started pretty early on and she had no choice but to continue. So it'd gotten much worse as she had filled it all out. 'Jeez, and apparently some people actually like doing that kind of thing.'

At current she was stuck on patrol, it was damn boring as nothing at all was happening. At least she wasn't stuck in the stuffy room anymore. She was on patrol until early in the morning. She was unually tired at the moment thanks to the unwanted wake up at a seriously inapropiate time, but she didn't have to go to work tommorow. It was one of her few days off, and she was intent on spending that day sleeping; it wasn't like she had anything to do, her time was filled with work.

She walked down a quiet path, it was dark and lightless but her eyes were well adjusted to it. The town had been well developed considering it had only been two years since the fall. The buildings at the edges of town were made from stronger meterial and were bigger because they had the best chance of being attacked by a fiend. Not many lived in those houses, only brave people dared it. The ones in the middle were made from weaker materials because they didn't have enough of the stronger ones for the whole place. But they were good enough to live in and survive, and that was the only need. There was no need for extravagance like on Cocoon, they didn't have enough of anything for it and all they needed was the bare necessities.

Lightning spotted the house Serah had mentioned that had apparently been attacked by an Ugallu, it was quite clearly missing a roof, that was the first thing she noticed. It wasn't right near the edge of New Bodhum, but it wasn't near the middle either. That was lucky because the middle was the most heavily populated. Other than the middle a large number of people lived on the beache's edge, like her and NORA did.

She kept her eye out for any movement, at the moment there was nothing, tonight had been quiet for this time of night. It was common for beasts to sneak in and try to attack something or someone. People were more unsuspecting, though a few became more weary at such times; but that number was only a small amount of the population. People here were too used to living on Cocoon, two years in this place were not enough to curer that yet. Hopefully someday but not now. Back in Bodhum people would be able to rest in their beds without a worry, but that had changed drastically when they were forced to live on Pulse.

So far all she had done tonight was take down a small goblin who was about to attack a kid, she'd killed it in an instant, small things like that were nothing to her. But in the end his mother had yelled at her because she had been scared by how close her gunblade had been to her son. That didn't help with her bad mood, she could have tried to say thanks, that kid was small enough to actually be harmed or killed by that thing even if it was something weak to her.

Lightning sighed in frustration, nothing was happening, everything was silent tonight. She could barely see a point of doing this when there was no point. She had to force herself not the kick the next object that was unlucky enough to be near her. She even wished now that there was some fiends about, even if they were weak as shit and a threat to civilians; it would make something to vent out her sudden anger on. Her ears picked up the sound of laughter, so quickly her head twisted around to see where it had come from. She saw a girl dragging a boy behind her to the back of a building where she couldn't see. She thought she recognised the boy but she couldn't put her finger on it, his brown hair was such a common colour, it could have been from anywhere.

She sighed again, it was only teenagers being stupid and nothing more. 'Stupid indeed' She thought to herself. She hadn't gotten a clear look but it wouldn't be surprising if they couldn't fight off monsters by themselves. She had the thought to go overthere and make them go back to their houses, but something stopped her. She had a weird feeling about them, but like how she couldn't figure out why she recognised the boy, she couldn't quite put her finger on why she coudn't get herself to move in that direction.

She rolled her eyes, her mind was being idiotic now. She didn't usually listen to her mind when it told her to go and do something like...go in the complete oposite direction. Why ever she was actually doing it now was beyond her.

The majority of the patrol went the same as it had all night. She'd only dispatched two fiends throughout the entire thing, and told some teenagers to go home and stop messing around at night time, she'd told them a behemoth would eat them if they didn't when they were being retarded and wouldn't listen. She honestly had no idea why she chose to say that; but whatever, it worked at least.

It was at the end when it went along a different route. It had all started with a small little laugh, which sounded like it had been said by a kid. But of course it certainly wasn't that.

"So how you doing soldier girl?" Came a voice she more than recognised.

She spun around to see the face of the girl that had caused her head injury no more than three weeks ago.

She stood leaning over a balcony of a house not so far away from her. Her blue-green hair was in a noticeably different hairstyle, it was tied in two ponytails and overlycurly. It reminded her of Vanille in a weird kind of way. What she wore was similar to a school uniform,which made her wonder what the crap had the girl been doing before hand.

"Nice to see you." She joked with the most smug expression on her face. Light took note that she wasn't wearing the piecing she'd had from their previous encounter.

"There is something wrong with you." She muttered angrily, which only caused the other to smile more.

"I heard that you know." She said in a sing song voice. "Thanks that's very nice of you to say." she concluded looking no less cheery. "I never get people speaking bad to me. It's nice to hear it every once in a while."

"This girl is completely nuts, how the hell is someone insulting you nice?" She didn't notice she'd said that out loud until the bluehead made a comment on it.

"How is it nice? Because I never get them even though I deserve it so much." She put her hands on her hips now with a stubborn expression, "But that's what I get from acting so nice to them."

Lightning was too caught in her childish act that she didn't take in full consideration that the woman was well aware of the soldier's hand falling to her gunblade. Her anger wasn't getting any better in this moment. What this girl was saying didn't make sense.

"Nice? What the hell do you mean nice? You're a murderer!" She yelled out, it slipping from her lips.

The smile that graced her lips disappeared for once, she tried not to be surprised, especially since it came back a second later.

"I am nice. it just depends on the person." She stated with a sad tone, despite wearing a bright smile. "If you're my friend, you will bring out my good personality, and I am nice. But if you're my victim, then you bring out 'Arianna'" She put emphasis on the last word.

"And then you're dead." She finished and put her fallen gaze back onto the soldier whose grip was ever tightening on her weapon's hilt.

"A name changes everything soldier girl, I could have met you before, but since I wasn't 'Arianna', you would never suspect me. Same goes for everyone." The smile left her lips.

Lightning listened closely to her words, from the way she was speaking she took it that Arianna wasn't her real name. This girl though same at the start, was now acting different from the time before when she'd encounted her. The time where she had caused her that head injury, the same one that Serah couldn't stop worring about. Subconsciously she moved one hand to her forehead where she had been hit, just in this moment she felt like she could feel it's pain again.

Arianna's expression changed to one close to worry. She rested her arms on the railings of the balcony and put her chin on her hands.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm not the type to hurt in anger, I usually only do it to kill. I have trouble with how hard I should hit, so I did it much harder than intended." She apologised.

Lightning seriously had to force herself not to let her anger show at that comment.

"You're the one that did it! Why are you sorry!" She screamed at her and pulled her gunblade out of it's holder aiming it at her.

Arianna's face went shocked for a second but then she made a move, she ducked underneath the railings and for a second it looked like she had completely disappeared. But then it clicked that there had been a hole in the balcony and there had been too much junk to see the bluehead duck underneath it. She raced ahead in it's direction but to her dismay when she got there she couldn't see the younger woman. She groaned, feeling damn pissed but continued to try and find her. She was moving about the junk in the area to see if she had hid herself among it but couldn't see her anywhere. After she failed there she moved around the whole area, her actual job at the moment completely forgotten.

She lashed out and kicked a trash can when the search came out with nothing. 'She'd done it again! How was she doing this?'

She forced all the anger she felt back inside, she must make a bad sight right now. She'd have to report this to her superiors later. For now she'll have to continue on her patrol, and hope to the goddess that she caught sight of her again.

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><p><strong>Sorry for any mistakes I'm tired.<strong>

**Reviews will be appreciated more than you know and shall help with my sanity, and I'll give you a nice big cookie as well.**

**Thanks for reading my baby**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	5. Because nothing was ever as it seemed

**(4,385 words) Would you like chips with your oil? had the worst chips in my life today, they tasted like nothing but oil. I also walked home from my friend's house barefoot, I felt like a child. It was so wonderful and nostalgic I couldn't care less that my feet felt like they were BURNING!**

**I have a ten cent bet that this chapter will get more reviews than all the others, only need five to win, please I don't want to lose. Plus reviews are much appreciated and they shall make me love you.**

**I've been so exited over this chapter, and now I finally got to write it, my heart was beating a mile a minute at the end. It is a bombshell, you'll love it Jizuka-chan :3**

**Disclaimer: If I owned this I wouldn't be plotting to steal the legal rights to Serah.**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love<span>

Chapter 5: Because nothing was ever as it seemed

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><p>Looking around the empty room, she realised she had nothing left to do. She hadn't had work today, everyone else had, she was left alone. When she got bored of waiting for someone's company, the secret voice in her head began screaming at her to leave.<p>

She set down the half empty glass down on the table and ducked out, making sure no one noticed her as she walked off, she didn't want to answer someone asking 'what are you doing?', it wasn't the type of thing they'd like to know anyway.

Before she had left she had put her hair into a bun, she didn't have the most normal of colours and she hoped making it smaller would gain less attention. She didn't want people watching or following her right now. As she got to the outskirts of New Bodhum she spied on the guards keeping watch at the side of town, there was always a spot without someone there; that was the spot she would use to get past them. Sometimes they seemed so stupid considering it was only five minutes before she found a blank spot; she was well aware that not all of the towns soldiers were this dumb, she knew that first hand.

After creeping past them, doing her best to stop herself from laughing, she made her way to a old building a couple kilometres away. People had thought it had been a old Pulsian building that had miraculously survived for hundreds of years. But it wasn't very stable, so no one trusted going inside in case it gave way. She had found out from a sudden boredom that had taken her over months ago that it was much more trustworthy than people took it for. It even had a secret little basement, that came in handy for sure.

"Hello bitch, how you doing?" A chuckling voice greeted her as she swung open the dirty grey front door.

"Oh I thought that was you darling." Her second personality taking over the moment she stepped inside.

"No it's that other bitch more like it." The raven haired woman greeted her from the remains of what may have once been a couch, her green eyes twinkling mischievouly.

"No she is still nicer than you Melly Mel." The younger girl giggled, taking her hair out of her bun and turning it into a loose ponytai at the top of her head.

"Melly Mel? Are you five?" The raven haired girl, Mel, stared at her like she was nuts.

"Actually last time I checked I was twenty." The younger one answered as if she hadn't noticed Mel was joking around.

"I was joking little Ari Ari," Mel rolled her eyes and spoke in a childish voice as she leaned over to her friend as she herself sat down on the tatted remains of a greenish couch.

"Crescent sent me a little message." She fluttered her eyes innocently as Arianna's face turned to disgust,

"Crescent! What does she want?" She growled folding her arms angrily.

The raven head smirked at the girl's sudden anger and handed her a piece of paper.

"Apparently a lot of her agents died in the purge and the fall. Others have gotten caught so she is losing people to help her do her 'job'. She's gone a little panicky and doesn't have many choices left. So she wants you to do a hit for her." She shrugged as Arianna's face turned more angry.

"I hate that woman, I haven't done anything for her since I fifteen, why now?" She wanted nothing more than to scrunch up the paper right now, but she knew she didn't have that option at the moment.

"Look, if you're going to kill someone anyway might as well have a point to do it right?" Mel tilted her head waiting for the girl to answer.

"But the people I kill have usually done something bad too, like kill or rape someone. The people she wants me to kill have done nothing wrong but get on her bad side."

"A kill's a kill, deal with it." She said as she moved closer to Arianna and ran a hand through her hair, giving her usual grin.

"Fine!" She jumped up off the couch. "I'll do it, doesn't mean I have to like it." Her shoulders slumped.

"Oh you'll like it, you always do you cute little phycho." Mel positioned her arms behind her back with a grin permanently on her face.

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><p>Down in the basement of the house was a room she predicted was once a bathroom. The walls were slowly disintigrating and it was a total mess as a whole. But as long as it had running water it was fine. There was pipes connected to the shore out the front of the sea side house that got water into what appeared to be a shower.<p>

Arianna picked up a can of blue hair colour which had been left by her there for awhile now. There was plenty left in it so she got ahead to spraying it on her hair. She wore wigs when she did this, but coloured the hair underneath in the case of any of it falling out, as she didn't have to most normal of hair. The spray was not the same colour as the wig but was very similar so it did the job.

The now blue haired girl looked at the piece of paper in her hand with details about the man that was now her target. She would decide on what to wear depending on what he was like. She didn't have a problem with that, she had a good idea of what she would put on and that exact costume would make her seem less harmful. She chuckled to herself at the thought of her being harmless, she came off as that to everyone, it was too easy taking into consideration her other personality. She finished reading all the details and put the note down, it was all fine with one problem, this man had an obssession with the colour white.

'uuuh, white.' the thought made her shiver. White was guilty pretending to be an angel. Just like her, but so different, it symbolised her badness.

She shook her head and got back to concentrating on the current. Moving to a tap she washed her hands manickly, over using the soap just in case. She had to rid any traces of herself. After this she got into getting ready, putting on a plain white top and a light blue pleated skirt. She moved to where she hid all her wigs, she had an army she knew, but she just had to be safe. She picked up one of the many blue wigs, she liked how she looked with blue hair, despite it not being a favourite colour or anything. She used a hair net to properly tuck the long blue strands under the cover of the much shorter wig. It was the same blue green as the one she had from the last time she 'went out'. She looked over at her set of fake piecings, she had worn a lip one before, but at the last second decided not to wear one this time.

She twirled looking at herself in the mirror, all the colours of her outfit complemented the other parts. But over all she couldn't help but think she looked like a school girl. It would be a help though, it made her seem more innocent than she truthfully was. The curly pig tails were reminding her of someone she had seen years back, they were remarkably similar to that person's, but all the more better since they were blue.

Lastly she put on a pair of gloves and tucked a gun and holster to her side, keeping it under the cover of a gray coat ending at her knees.

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><p>Upstairs Mel gave her an evil little smile, her friend could make herself look so different so easily. She had to admit to herself she looked pretty cute right now.<p>

"Can you see anything but blue?" Arianna asked snapping her away from being distracted by observing the youngers girl's body.

"Just blue every where, got nothing to worry 'bout." Mel answered before moving her eyes back down from Arianna's blue blue eyes to return to what she was doing.

"You're not lying are you? You seem quite distracted." She was fully aware of what the raven hair was doing, it was far from the first time.

"Trust me. Blue blue and more blue is all I'm seeing."

"Good, I'll see you later than." She exited the building, keeping in mind the address she was going to.

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><p>"17 did you say you were?" An aging man asked a happy looking Arianna,<p>

"Yep , 17." She said cheerily, altering her voice's pitch to a higher tone, not like this man knew it was fake.

She had found her target in a bar, the person at the doors didn't even ask for an ID, didn't help with the dodgy feeling she had gotten from the place. She had started up a conversation, gaining a trust of sorts with the guy. He fell for her charade and now he was walking back to his home with her by his side. She made herself seem like some naive school girl, and he believed in it whole heartedly.

He was nearing middle age, he was tall and chunky but his age had taken a toll on him. His hair was clearly dyed a light brown, streaks of gray poked through from the roots. He had a deep voice that was anything but nice. Even when this guy laughed it seemed evil and mean, she found herself trying not to shiver at it.

But if he creeped her out then it couldn't be compared when they arrived to the apartment. He swung open the door and she was greeted by the sight of a blinding white room.

'white, uuuuh.' It made her so paranoid being surrounded by the colour her eyes darted around as if expecting to see a phantom with a mutilated face plotting her demise. Yes she had a fear of the colour white, out of everything she could be scared of, she was scared of white.

"Do you want a drink young lady?" His cold voice spoke up snapping her temporarily away from her fears. She looked up to see him eyeing her strangely with an unnerving smirk.

"Y...yes, thanks." She stutted, almost forgetting to raise her voice higher than its usual. She rubbed her arms, ignoring the cold sensation she got.

He left the room to go to where she predicted was the kitchen. She sat down on the closest chair, it too was snow white.

'I feel nauseaous, am I going to die now?' She rubbed her arms softly before remembering that she should cover her gun better, she could make out its shape. She adjusted her coat so it was a thicker part the gun hid behind. Her target returned with two drinks and sat them down on the coffee table between the couches, seating himself opposite her. He gave her that same untrustworthy smirk.

She picked up the glass, it had some kind of alchohol in it, she was right to not trust this guy. She wasn't even the legal age, and she was claiming to be younger than she was. Evil.

"Drink up," He grinned with an almost evil look in his eye. Yes, he was evil, very muchly so.

She eyed the green liquid, it smelt like mango and apples all mixed together, but she felt so sick she didn't want to touch the stuff. She could feel sweat dripping down her forehead, she ran a shaky hand through synthetic blue locks. All this from being in a white room. She was so stupid.

"You haven't had too much already have you? I didn't see you down anything at the bar." He asked though not really curious about it obviously. Out of the corner of her downsward gaze she could still see that smirk, that god damn smirk.

"I'm going to go get a refill," He stated and stood moving to go return to the kitchen.

Now or never.

Arianna stood up behind him, he heard her do it and was about to turn back but felt cold steel against his lower back. He stiffened immidiately and whimpered.

"Yeah you know what that is." She grabbed him ruffly and pushed him back, his shaking legs gave way from the force and he smashed onto the glass coffee table.

He watched her with fear in his eyes, she could see the sweat beginning to cover his forehead. She lifted the gun so it faced the middle of his head.

"P...please..." He pleaded "Don't kill me!" He paused inhaling and exhaling sharply very fast. "I'll do anything if you just let me live!" He screamed, voice cracking showing just how scared the coward was.

"And what does that mean you little crybaby?" She chuckled evily, keeping up a frightening effect for the shivering man.

"Anything!" He yelled as tears filled with his fear dripped down his face.

She took in the way he was looking at her and rolled her eyes, She harshly put a foot against his chest, pushing him harder into the shattered glass.

"Subtance over style I say, besides that only works on men you pervert."

She let him cower there for a second longer,taking in the sight of his tears and red cuts from the shards of glass that stuck into him. The way he breathed so heavily and unevenly, that she was the one that had done this. She felt excited, revelling in the entirety of this moment.

She pulled the trigger, in a split second it was over; his head snapped back from the force of the bullet and his eyes rolled back. Crimson blood poured from the hole in his head, falling down his face onto the floor.

With a little smirk she left the corpse alone in the room to rot. She didn't regret pulling the triger. She could guess already that this man had lead a bad life, no wonder he had gotten on Crescent's bad side.

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><p>Wandering through empty streets she made her way back to her and Mel's little hideout, with a couple distractions of course. The first, was the brown haired boy peeking around a corner nervously. She knew this boy, and it sure had been a long time since she had seen him. Sneaking up right besides him she poked him on the shoulder, he turned around curiously only to be greeted by the sight of her grinning face. The boy snapped his head back in shock, hitting the stone wall with a bang.<p>

"Ow," He complained rubbing the lump he'd made, "Damn you." He eyed her warily, eyes slipping down to the gun at her waist. He didn't bother to hide him rolling his eyes from her.

"Old habits die hard I guess."

"Not really habit, I wasn't going to kill any one tonight. Crescent gave me a hit." She put her hands on her hips and pouted like a child.

"Crescent? That creepy bitch, she hasn't given you one for years. Is something up..."

"Don't say it!" She cut him off.

He looked at her inscrutably, like she had gone nuts; oh right she was nuts.

"Why not? It's your name."

Arianna looked awkwardly around the area, getting away from the conversation.

"Hey Travis? Are you spying on a certain someone?" She asked quietly, wanting nothing more than to leave now.

"What makes you think that?" The boy named Travis asked her back,

"Maybe...because," She looked around the corner, "Because she's there."  
>Travis looked around behind her looking over to the woman who had caught Arianna's gaze.<p>

Without wanting to a small laugh left her lips, instantly she noticed the woman ahead of them turning around, quickly she turned around grabbing Travis's arm and pulled him back behind the cover of the building. But the woman was bound to at least have seen one of them.

Travis took a sharp breath in, "Don't do that again, she almost saw me."

Arianna had a quizzical face for a second, "So are you scared of her?"

His face turned bright red, "Hell no! How could I be scared of HER!"

"Maybe because she has the ability to bash the crap out of you and has many times before despite your body condition?" She stated it like a question.

"I'm not scared of her alright?" He said confident of himself.

"Fine fine," She turned to leave, but travis called out,

"Does she know who you are?" He sounded it with urgency.

She looked partway back to him, "Aunty Ari let the name 'Arianna' slip in her prescence, she told me that awhile ago."

She pivoted and walked off, she didn't hear what else the boy said.

"But that's not your name, is it?"

* * *

><p>Arianna was now bored, it was late, she should go home before any one else did. But they wouldn't be back for awhile most likely. She didn't want to be alone when she was still shaking off the chills she had from being in a white room; so she had some time to go waste. And she sure had a fun way to do it.<p>

She snuck closer and closer to the unsuspecting woman, being light footed so she didn't make a sound. A trained soldier should be able to notice someone sneaking up on them a lot easier than other people. And this was one good soldier. She felt like this was suicidal. But she still wanted to do it none the less.

The made her way up a destroyed balcony, she had mapped out the area beforehand so she had a good escape route just in case the woman went after all, for which all signs pointed to yes. If she was forced into an all out sprint to get away from her she would lose, she was both much slower and much weaker; she had to be careful.

she leaned over the balcony's railings, giving herself a smug grin that was completely fake. She knew she was in earshot, she just hadn't noticed her yet. As fun as it would be to surprise her from making her figure it out herself, she decided to get the encounter started.

It all began with a little giggle.

"So how are you going Soldier girl? She smiled as Lightning turned around with a shocked expression.

"Nice to see you," She made herself look even more smug, the soldiers expression turned quickly to anger.

"There is something wrong with you!" She muttered just loud enough for her to hear.

She did her best to hide the happiness that welled up inside her from that comment, but none the less she needed to comment on it.

"I heard that you know," She exclaimed in a sing song voice, the most annoying she could muster, "That's very nice of you to say."

"I never get anyone talking bad to me, it's nice to hear it every once in awhile" So much for hiding how happy the insult had made her.

She heard Lightning softly mutter something, which she made out to be her saying she was completely nuts for taking it as a compliment. She guessed that she hadn't intended for her to hear, but she commented on it anyway.

"How is it nice?" She said it like it was the most simple thing in the world, "Because I never get them even though I deserve it so much." She stuck her hands on her hips in a confident stance and said,

"But that's what I get for acting so nice to them."

She couldn't help but smile as Lightning's face darkened, damn was she pissed right now. All according to plan. She took notice that the soldier was reachiing for her gunblade as well.

"Nice! what the hell do you mean nice! You're a murderer!" She yelled harshly.

Oh how it made her heart skip a beat.

"I am nice, it just depends on the person." She started, her other personality slipped in and made it sound sad. "If you're my friend you bring out my good personality, and then I'm nice. But if you're my victim you bring out 'Arianna'" She paused taking a breath.

"And then you're dead."

Lightning's grip on her blade tightened in her anger, this did not go unnoticed.

Arianna was not done, she had so much more that she wanted to say, but she knew she must limit it. Whether she truly wanted to or not.

"A name changes everything soldier girl. I could have met you before, but since I wasn't 'Arianna' you would never have suspected me. Same goes for everyone."

There was a silence then, cold winds blew past, she could feel the older woman's anger from up here. Slowly a hand felt her forehead. That was right, she had hit her there, she had never intended to do it. It was the soldiers fault things had gotten that far.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm not the type to hurt in anger, I usually only do it to kill. I have trouble with how hard I should hit."

But her apology did nothing but further ignite the flames of anger the other felt.

"You're the one that did it! Why are you sorry?" That was enough for her, she pulled the gunblade out of its holster and aimed it for her.

Arianna was shocked for a second but forced herself to get over it. She jumped off the balcony through the hole in its middle. She used the area she had marked out to get away from the pissed off soldier, who she knew was now after her. She herself was surprised that Lightning did not catch her, she knew she had the talent to.

So she ran for her life with her heart beating a mile a minute to get back to her hiding spot where she hoped she would be safe. She didn't want to be caught, especially not by that particular pink haired soldier.

Back at the hideout she took off her outfit and washed all the blue hair colouring out of her hair, repeatively using Mel to make sure she had gotten it all out. she knew she was being more paranoid than usual, if the older one noticed, she didn't mention it.

After she had washed out the blue to make sure nothing but her real colour showed. Both her and Mel walked outside together, Mel wearing eye contacts to hide her natural green. Unlike her, Mel wore disguises in normal life, because she didn't want others knowing her. She even had a riduculously good fake personality to help her do it.

"Something's up right?" She said as they walked out the door.

"Huh?" She looked up, she had been distracted.

"Something's up, and it's annoying me." Mel shrugged. "Look I understand it's your problem, but it's annoying me with you acting like this. If you don't mind can you not focus on it near me? Deal with it later."

The younger girl looked shocked for a second, for a reason unknown to the older one.

"Right. Deal with it later." She looked dejectedly to the side. "Hey can you go on by yourself, I want to be alone for a minute." She asked.

The raven hair looked at her strangely for a second then sighed, "Sure, but don't be too long. Or those idiotic bitches are gonna worry for you." She sniggered then continued walking back home but by herself.

The one left alone watched her until she was gone before walking to the shore's edge. She could feel the freezing water lap at her sandles and toes.

She looked up at the glowing orb that was Cocoon. It made a pang of guilt run through her heart, whenever she looked up she had the feeling she was forever being watched, being judged by those who had once thought she was good. She rubbed her arm, feeling a cold sensation that she knew would never go away.

Brushing away a loose strand of hair, she said to someone who she would never know heard it or not.

"If it's too much to take, deal with it later." She looked scared as her eyes clung to Cocoon's shining light,

"It's not actually very good advice I gave you was it? Vanille?"

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><p><em><strong>DUN DUN DUN<strong>_

**Yeah, bet you didn't see that one coming.**

**My sister did, she figured it all out from a basic description of the story before I'd even began to write. Best part about it is that my friend (0erbayunfang) has gained an obssesstion with Arianna since I drew a picture of her in my english book (the hands suck in that picture Fang, don't deny it)**

**I would love to win the bet I have so reviews will be extremely appreciated. It you do plan to review tell me first off whether I'm a total bitch or a total genius.**

**Do it soon because I'm going to die when I see my friend next.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	6. thinking

**(2,044 words) The original version had 2000 words exactly but it seems my beta reader has added 44 more. Extremely sorry for my lack of updates, I was rewriting another story of mine called wings of regret. Read it I reccomend it greatly, it's my fav and I love it, but no one reads it so I'm all depressed. I wrote the first five chapters before writing anything else. I've written two other chapters since then, this was next in line but, then my laptop broke. Yes my four month old 600 dollar laptop is all ready broken (I just noticed to be honest I've had it for exactly four months) I wrote this on my school laptop and used my new USB to put it on my parents, which I am currently using, and had to wait for my Beta to edit it. And as now that is all done here is my update finally, I'm going to go kill that stupid laptop from keeping me from writing my two wonderfully depression FFVII stories. Jya mata ne.**

**Disclaimer: I no own this, naw damn**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love <span>

Chapter 6: Thinking

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><p>Serah let out a loud yawn, covering her mouth as her drowsy eyes shut.<p>

"You tired now? It's only afternoon, you gotta be kidding me." Lebreau asked from behind the kitchen counter washing up a stack of dishes left from lunch. Now was the best time to be doing it in case dinner made it massive. It would suck for whoever had to do it because she would, more than likely, force it onto someone else.

"I had trouble sleeping and went to bed late, that's why I'm tired, alright?" Serah replied from the other side of the room, pouring herself a cup of water.

"You always have trouble sleeping. Everyone else went to sleep later than you, and we're all fine."

"You realise I'm not everyone else," She mumbled. The way Lebreau was talking about it was giving her the usual feeling of uselessness. She knew she wasn't, so this feeling was stupid for to exist at all, either way she never mentioned how she really felt on how she was viewed.

Serah fiddled with the cup in her hands. Given that no one but she and Lebreau were in the house from the lack of people, it was tempting her mind to slip into the other personality of hers. But she did her best to resist of course, in case someone else was to enter; it was, on her point, being paranoid that was the main reason that she managed not to. Lebreau didn't have to be suspicious of her for anything, not when she knew as much as she did; it was far more than she let on. Even so, the setting made her uneasy to let her dark side show whether or not the person next to her was aware of it.

Her eyes edged up to see the small grin resting on the other's face as she dried her hands on the hand towel right near her. It was saying more than what she'd say out loud but it was nothing but being another bother to her. She never liked that grin.

"What?" Serah questioned quietly, her mind was almost completely in a different place at the moment. Even talking felt strange.

"You still have something bothering you; seriously I need to question now. It's getting far too annoying; you were fine only a little while ago. What happened?" Lubreau's gaze was focused on her; the look on her face was like a crack in a facade.

Serah took a step back; her mood wasn't getting any better; she was far from in the mood to be asked questions.

"You weren't concerned before so why are you asking now?" She grumbled, she planned to simply step around her and leave before this went on for much longer.

"Because I thought you would get over it, it has been a week. I want to know." Her gaze was, if possible, more intense, it wasn't helping with her uneasy feelings at all.

Serah turned her gaze to her feet and kept it there so she wouldn't have to look at her friend. She had an unsettling feeling in her stomach. It wasn't helping considering 'Arianna' was in the mood to come out. She bit her lip and tried to step back again but was greeted by the wall, which her back hit, and none too gently. She flinched and for a second her eyes shot back up to see that Lebreau's expression was yet to change.

"Come on, spit it out," She half chuckled.

Serah shook her head and looked back up to her friend's eyes. It was only noticeable from a close distance, that the colour was fake; she was wearing contacts.

"Mel, don't make me. If I don't want to, then I don't want to." She begged and side stepped and almost got around her successfully, but as she got to the other end of the kitchen a hand grasped her own. Twisting her back her friend had a unhappy smirk planted on her face.

"Call me that again in a place like this and I'll start calling you Arianna near that bitch of a sister of yours." She released her arm, "Okay?" Smiling deceivingly sweet for what she had actually said.

"Fine, I won't then, it slipped out anyway," She said before leaving the house.

She found herself walking around for a while; constantly she was left with absolutely nothing to do. When she didn't have any teaching to do, everyone else still had plenty on their plates to finish off before they had any free time. Lightning was usually doing something work related and NORA were most likely helping fix a broken house or something along those lines. She'd never actually been allowed to assist them because everyone thought that she would hurt herself if she ever did. She knew that wasn't so, she knew she'd be fine. But everyone believed she didn't have the skills for it and basically saw her as weak and plainly useless in certain aspects. They wouldn't ever say it in such a way out loud because of not wanting to hurt her feelings, but she was smart enough to know that that was what they meant.

She scoffed. Her, useless? Hardly. But she had made them think of her as sweet and innocent; it made her less of a suspect considering what she did behind their backs. There was plenty she had never mentioned and, keeping it all in the dark, it had created the false image of her. It was all for the best, clearly, as no one she knew had a single idea about her hidden skills. She was dead accurate with a gun and knew well how to handle an array of different weapons. Heck she actually knew how to kill someone with a pen. Insane, but it is far easier than it sounds, certain parts of the neck are, not surprisingly, vulnerable.

It wasn't like every part of her was faked; her personality was true. It was simply because she had more than one. She was still the sweet girl that everyone knew, but 'Arianna' was anything but. She was a killer. When that personality took her over she revelled in what she did and didn't regret the act of murdering another. When she returned to being 'Serah' it wasn't a sadness she felt for whose life she had taken but simply a sadness for those who had known them. She had never once killed someone completely innocent but many had hidden their dark side much like she did. Their friends and relatives believing that they hadn't deserved what was given to them left them very distraught.

She was CRESCENT's prodigy. It was an organisation with a woman who was the namesake at it's head. Clearly Crescent was not her real name, but she had more than enough reasons to hide what it truly was. She spent her time doing an uncountable number of bad things, all the while having an army to do her bidding. Of course those biddings included killing off anyone that got in her way. She trained her agents like crazy, from when they were kids usually. Serah herself started when she was only four. She was ten when she did start doing the actual work. Crescent had become obsessed with her abilities. She wasn't overly strong or fast, but she made up for it with other aspects. She was smart, very smart. Though this was partly known to the others, for she made them believe she wasn't as smart as she was in truth. The main reason she was yet to be caught was because she had an amazing skill when it came to predicting. If she knew a person's skill set and a basic idea on how their mind worked it was easy to predict what their next move would be and it sure made it a pain for someone to get near her in a chase even if they were faster than her.

Serah took herself away from her thoughts for a second to wave back at a couple as she walked past. She sat down on a rock near there and slid down, her back to them.

Sometimes she felt amazed herself how easily she tricked people. It sickened her that she had such an ability to do so. Originally her personality was what she called 'Arianna', but as she had more and more people to trick, she found herself feeling guilty from lying to them as much as she was and wanted to change. It had made her want to leave CRESCENT; she began wishing she was someone else. Somehow that fake personality became real, this she was glad for but when it did she hoped that maybe it would make 'Arianna' fade. But as the years went on that part did not change, and if anything, it became worse. In her attempt to be different than her hated self she had left CRESCENT and swore she wouldn't again take the life of another ever again. Needless to say that wish became nothing but a wish. She had grown up being taught how to get away with murder, to be the perfect assassin, under the noses of all that cared for her. She couldn't stop just like that. She hadn't realised, but it was so ingrained in her to harm that she had become addicted to it and needed it just to keep her sane. If she could call the state of her mind that.

She outwardly breathed a sigh, hoping that anyone that had seen it took it as boredom.

As for what was up with Mel, she was as well a former member, she had stopped the assassin part before she had and instead began giving her protection. She went as far as creating a totally fake personality and befriending guys that she couldn't stand. Her name was fake; her eyes were fake. Heck even her voice was faked. It must get agitating lying to that degree; she wouldn't have been able to stand it at all.

Serah only lied about her name when she did bad things, for Mel it was opposite. She had taken her fake name from her mother, as she was supposedly an orphan no one knew what her parents were called or who they were so it wasn't like someone would know the name was stolen. She wasn't always the nicest of people, but she was nice to her on occasions. In fact the life she lived currently was for her, so no one would know her true self. Serah didn't like it but Mel was protective of her and cared enough about her to know how she would feel if anyone was to find out. Her reaction to such a thing ranged from anywhere between pulling a disappearing act so she didn't have to face them to swallowing a bucket of bleach and ending it all. Both of which were in their own way horrible, and Mel would do anything from stopping them either.

Serah groaned quietly so no one but she heard. She could swear that if she kept up this chain of thoughts she would give herself depression, not that she didn't already have it. Try living her life; you wouldn't have been able to stand it without receiving some type of mental problem. She didn't want to make it worse; it was bad enough as it was.

Goddess, she was feeling scared at the moment. More than ever did she fear the others would find out the truth about her. She had become who she was for the sake of hiding it, but now things were going too far and the chance of the truth being known was creeping out. She felt like her pitiful life was stuck in a never ending nightmare, even when a part of her was begging for the truth to be told.

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><p><strong>And done, I would have had more done but my mind was foccused on other things and I couldn't write, so this is <strong>**a chapter used to better explain somethings. I'm sorry for having to make you wait so long for an update after that ending, I feared for my life when I posted it. Thanks for the reviews so far.**

**"When the war of the beasts brings about the worlds end, the goddess decends from the sky, wings of light and darkness reach out, she guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting." To quote Loveless.**

**I got FFVII crisis core the tuesday before last tuesday. It got me off Fanfiction for a week, I'm still not done, Genesis scares me and I don't want to fight him. I've attempted three times now, the last time I got absolutely owned. Goddamnit.**

**Reviews shall be much appreciated.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	7. Visitor

**(4,338 words, I****'m sorry I t****ried making it longer, honest) Sorry if there's been a wait, comp problems still ongoing and my Beta has one comp between three and Tetris is my passion. Plus I ****plainly didn't know what words I should use, my writing sucks in this chap I ****will openly admit, I've done better, like in the fifth. God that was a fun one.**

**Now yes this is unrelated to the extreme but I ****would like to speak of my classes obvious insanity during our PT class today. We're doing some stuff on sexual education you see, and with my class lacking sanity people kept making jokes. It was kinda the teachers fault becuase he drew a man and woman's sexual organs on the board. Seriously right after he'd drawn the mens he took a step back and said, "I gotta say that must be the biggest dick I****'ve ever drawn."**

**It was pretty god damn funny, especially if you were there. Plus after a minute of talking he drew a sperm and this kid arrived late to class, the first thing he heard the teacher say was "Sperm" So he was like "Oh sperm isn't that just wonderful." In this really blank was kinda one of those you have to be there to be funny things though.**

**Last but not least was what one of the more sanity-challenged girls in my class had said. she can't compare to me but she's pretty bad when it comes to her mental state ( I mean this jokenly of course). See the teacher included in the picture the part on top of a sperm which it actually is where all the DNA is, so he was about to talk about how that is the only important part. But he made the mistake of saying it in a certain way, and his picture made a delightful little sentence form in afore mentioned girls head. and this was it,**

**Teacher: Sperms are a simple organism...**

**Girl: With a hat!**

**Yeeeaah, little strange. and that's enough of that on with my precious (no wait this isn't my precious,****my precious is the Hylian loach, okay so i guess this is my baby).**

**Disclaimer: I don't own this I'm just trying to steal the legal rights to Serah, nothing more nothing less.**

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><p><span>Deceiving Love <span>

Chapter 7: Visitor

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><p>Lightning finished off telling her superior of the run in with the apparent serial killer the night she'd been patrolling. It was the same man from last time, if she could remember right his name was David Ravus. He seemed to be very interested in the girl, both from simply how young she was and still could had such skills and that she just appeared out of nowhere.<p>

It seemed to him things were getting even more interesting about this girl, who called herself 'Arianna'. More than the fact that for the second time she'd made a Guardian Corps member lose track of her, which they believed she may have mapped out the area for the best possible escape beforehand as it wouldn't have been the first time for someone in her situation to have done.

David had admitted fairly easily that he'd known Lightning had eavesdropped on the interview with the woman who'd they'd saved from becoming a new murder victim. How she'd heard the woman lie and say her name was 'Anna'.

The middle-aged man was flipping a small card between his fingers, the smallest of grins on his face; all the other girl could tell him was done and over and he saw no wrong in taking the time to mention a little fact that she may be interested in. He didn't have to as she wasn't assigned to finding out who this murderer was but he felt like from having encountered her twice it'd make for something worth mentioning.

"Why she lied?" Lightning repeated what he'd just told her. The woman actually had, what she'd been told, a very good reason to have done it; though only few would have truly understood it.

"Yes, why she lied," he said back. "At first I was thinking she was being so overly cautious that she was scared to even tell the people that were trying to protect her. But it would seem she's been lying about her name for longer than that." He flipped the card in his hand once more and rested it on the table.

Lightning's eyes moved down to it, she been wondering what it was for some time now.

"Her ID." David answered her thoughts, predicting that that question was inevitable.

"Her ID? What about it?"

"Read what her name is." He ordered and slid it across the table.

The strawberry-blonde woman picked it up and inspected it; she got what he was meaning immediately. Written on the card in large black letters was the name,

'Arianna Channix'

"Wha..?"

"Looks like the girl had stolen her name, and from all I've been told it was a long time ago too. Around six or seven years if we've been informed right, I'm not going to trust every single word that woman says when she's already given us a fake name."

He looked at the young woman in front of him. He didn't know what to think of exactly how she was staring at the name written on the ID, he had severe doubts that it was over the stolen name. It was a surprise but it couldn't put someone like Farron into anything near a shock. It had to be something about the last name, but he knew it wasn't his place to ask.

Lightning had a feeling of annoyance; she was now going to have to leave work that afternoon in a bad mood. Repeating what that psycho girl had asked had already been enough to put her in a bad mood; of course it had, the woman had been trying to piss her off on purpose! But this was something else to add to it. She wasn't so sure why it made her angry, but she recognised the last name of that blonde woman under GC's protection. But it was because of someone she'd known as a child, someone who was dead now.

She tried to push the thoughts out, she didn't want to have to take her anger out on someone; she felt too tired today. She just had to hope nothing happened to make it worse.

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><p>Snow had finished up early and was sitting in front of the counter having a chat with Lebreau. She'd forced him earlier to help clean up the place after a fight had broken out last night. Serah had helped a little too but from being in a majorly distracted mood she'd cut her finger on the glass of a broken bottle. She'd been made to go fix herself up after that and was told she wasn't allowed to help anymore. To go along with how distracted she was, she'd also been haven trouble sleeping and was much more tired than she usually would be at the end of the day. Snow wanted to know what was bothering her so much that she couldn't even sleep, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer and so he didn't ask. One thing was that certain things about her were hard to get an answer for, one of these things were the times she had sleeping problems. Even Lightning could never manage to get her to talk when she had them. Lebreau claimed she got close once but failed in the end just like everyone else always did.<p>

So now she was in her room having a nap, and the other two had nothing to do but talk. It would have been easier if Lebreau wasn't tired as well; Snow had a feeling she was going to fall asleep right then and there. But according to her she was too stubborn to let herself. He knew the others would be working late, and thus knew he was pretty damn doomed until then, Lebreau in her sleepy state wasn't good for conversation. That was when he noticed someone outside juggling four rocks.

Taking into consideration what his options to do were he took to watching the guy, as someone juggling four sharp rocks might be to anyone more entertaining than attempting to talk to a girl right about to fall asleep.

"Oi, Lebreau, see that guy over there?" He pointed in the direction of the rock the man was sitting on.

Drearily her gaze moved to the spot, her eyes shut against the light of the sunset for a second before she let them adjust.

"Oh yeah I see him. Shit that must take some practice; I've only ever seen people do it with three." She chuckled. "But that gotta hurt though."

"Because of the rocks?" He chuckled back.

"Hell yeah, you ain't meant to juggle freaking rocks you know." She yelled jokingly; then paused with an amused look on her face. "Hey call him over!" She ordered laughing.

"What? Why?" He got right on questioning; something had to be at least a little off with her sudden interest in the guy.

"I think I know him; just trust me!"

He rolled his eyes. Well, maybe it didn't matter too much, her interest in him. And why the hell did she think she knew him? He'd never seen the guy once. But nevertheless he found himself giving into Lebreau's begging.

If only getting the man's attention was that easy, he found himself having to call again and again simply in the attempts to. He was so engrossed by his juggling act he must have been concentrating so hard he'd shut off everything else. Well that may have been one way to successfully juggle four objects without dropping them for as long as he managed to.

"Jeez this is impossible." Snow sighed, "Can you really concentrate that hard?" He half asked, not meaning to be answered, more he was asking it to himself.

"I've done it before, actually. Surprisingly though it wasn't that hard. But I don't think you could do it."

He turned back to Lebreau for a second, the insult hadn't been missed.

"Oi, what makes you think that?"

The raven-haired woman did nothing but laugh for a minute or so, before finally giving him a proper answer, "I was just joking around don't take it so seriously!" She rolled her eyes and walked to the back of the kitchen, there were still things that needed cleaning up.

He waited a second and asked, "So do you still want me to get the bloody guy to come over here?"

She twisted her head back, her usual grin present, "Hell yeah! Didn't I say I think I know him?"

"Well I've never seen the guy once, so how'd you meet him?" He meant to go back to attempting to get the guy's attention, but Lebreau wanted to continue the conversation.

"A friend of a friend I think." She was halfway through picking up the broken glass of the bench; it'd been thrown over here and was yet to be fixed up as everyone had concentrated more on the rest of the area which was where the real damage had taken place.

"You think?"

"Look I was confused on what exactly there was between them, but I think they were friends. I know for sure it was nothing more than that." She finished the chat and put the broken objects into the bin.

Snow turned back now to continue what he'd basically been ordered to before but noticed that the guy was walking towards them now. Well looks like the problem had solved itself on its own.

The brown haired man stopped just outside the door and removed a pair of beaten up white earphones prior to saying, "Can you shut up?" His didn't look to be in a good mood. "I mean seriously, it's hard to hear my music over all your idiotic yelling!"

The two he happened to be yelling at went dead silent, but then Lebreau ruined it by bursting out into fits of laughter.

"I knew that would happen!" She rested an elbow against the counter top to keep herself upright.

Snow looked back at her with a shocked expression, "You knew he would? Are you trying to set me up or something?"

Lebreau didn't answer back; instead she carried on with laughing her head off.

Snow kept his face turned to her, waiting for the response even he doubted would come. During this he heard what sounded like a snigger, and it was made very noticeable indeed. He switched his gaze to the stranger in front of him, who now he didn't doubt that Lebreau knew him.

He had his head in his hand and was sighing by the time Snow took notice. He wondered if for that minute the boy had felt like the others had forgotten he was there. He certainly didn't view them as smart from the looks of things so far. He lifted his head back up with a small grin, though it was still possible to tell his previous annoyance. He was radiating it.

"If you don't want someone doing that to you then it's best to say to yourself that everyone is out to get you."

He caused another silence between the two, one sending a puzzled look to the other and all they could do was shrug as a response. Something seemed just a bit off with this man.

"And who would actually do that?" Snow got out between the moment of sheer confusion.

"I would," he shrugged nonchalantly, "Probably because every girl I know wants to kill me." To him his words were as normal as they could be, but to the others it was anything but.

"Every girl you know is out to kill you?" Snow put emphasis on the girl part. "How the hell did you manage to do that?" It sounded absolutely ridiculous.

"Oh it wasn't that hard really, I'm just good at it." He shrugged his shoulders again. His anger had dissipated completely, now he was being an object to throw confusion at.

Snow had to question how Lebreau knew this guy, and if she really did, had he always been like this? Able to talk about the weirdest of things, and to treat them like they were nothing?

In the middle of the conversation the sound of footsteps went deaf to them and they only noticed they had been there at all when Serah rounded the corner. Immediately her eyes went to the man standing by the door, her expression a mix of perplexity and shock.

"Travis?" She said in astonishment, eyes opened wide.

Snow looked back at her and asked, as this was just getting more and more baffling to him.

"You know him too?"

Her eyes moved to him, noticing him for the first time,

'Too? Oh wait, Mel must have said something. She sorta knew him didn't she?' She thought to herself before answering the question.

"Ah, yeah our parents were friends I think, can't really remember. I was pretty young back then." She mumbled fiddling with a stray lock of pink hair. She didn't want to be completely truthful about it; the 'parents' thing was very true, even if her memory wasn't clear on it. But the later years she knew him she refused to speak of, for they concerned 'Arianna'.

"Parents eh? How come I haven't heard a word about any of this?" His puzzlement was obvious.

"Maybe because you're an idiot?" Travis put in, earning looks from the others. He looked back at them like he didn't understand the problem with what he had just said.

"I don't think that would have anything to do with anything." Lebreau cut the silence, "No one was too bothered to say anything."

"Or maybe he is just an idiot." The brunette kept on saying.

He was still receiving the same looks, and he still looked back like he'd never said one word wrong throughout.

"What?" He lifted his arms. "He gives off the aura of an idiot."

"I what?"

This was when Serah decided to stop this before it got much further, she didn't know Travis the best but she knew he would be far too stubborn to admit to himself he was going too far than to ever admit it to someone else.

"So, um, how long have you been living here?" She cut in with a shaky voice.

She didn't miss that grin that Travis gave her. He knew she was just trying to save him from seeming like either a total bastard or that he had no brain in his head. For the amount of years she'd known him (even if for a couple of those they hadn't even gone near each other) she'd had to do it more than once.

"About a month, my sister suddenly said she didn't want me living by myself and forced me to move here."

"And why did she? You aren't a kid; didn't she get that through her head?" Snow piped up and asked, quickly forgetting that he was just being called an idiot by this guy, thanks to Serah's save.

"Hmm." Travis hummed and ran a hand through messy brown locks. "I've got this stupid body condition, it's hard to explain but I guess I can just say I'm weak to an extreme. She kept thinking something bad would happen if I was by myself so she made me come here. At least I managed two years away from her, she's evil to me."

"She doesn't seem evil if she was worried about you like that." Lebreau stated, leaning over the counter-top.

He looked over to her, and with a large devilish smirk, replied, "How does telling an army of girls lies about me so they would hate me and try to bash me sound?"

She stayed quiet after that.

Serah wasn't in the most talkative of moods; her mind was racing at the moment. She was having trouble getting her mind off some unrelated yet serious things. It'd gotten bad enough to affect her sleeping, but the nature of the events was the reason for why she didn't say a word at all about it. Somehow Travis was making her have even more trouble getting them out. She knew Lebreau had never liked the guy and she wasn't going to say much so it left him and Snow to talk by themselves for the most of it.

'Oh please don't go and say more stupid stuff', She thought. He made enemies easily and she believed that he would have the ability to get even Snow to hate him, and that could get hard sometimes.

"So…" Snow tried to think up a new subject, "It was pretty, um, impressive seeing you juggle those rocks before. Was it hard?"

Travis looked him with an expression which to any they could read it to be him thinking, this guy is stupid.

"Impressive?" He snorted, "Not really, I've just had enough time on my hands to learn how to do it. Surely you've seen better?"

Snow was taken aback by the rudeness of his response. "Jeez, man I was just asking, didn't have to react like that. It was a bloody question." He starting to get ticked off and Serah worried that she'd have to cut in again but it was actually Travis that saved her having to do so.

"Look, I'm going to go, obviously this isn't going anywhere and I feel if I stay in the same place a certain someone is going to kill me. And I'm not meaning any of you and I'd rather not be asked about it. I'm missing a little thing called sanity."

He didn't make any response to the bewildered looks he got at the 'I think a certain someone is going to kill me' comment and pivoted intending to walk off.

But right at the door he almost ran right into a certain pink haired soldier. He made a startled step back and stared blankly at the woman in front of him, who was giving an identical look back.

"C-Claire?" He stuttered; a pair of shocked expressions from two of the three behind him pierced the back of his head from the use of her real name.

Lightning blinked fast, feeling like she was hallucinating, that she was really seeing the man in front of her. Something inside her felt like it was plummeting and without much of a warning and to further the confusion of the others she suddenly stormed off, way out of their sight.

"What the crap was that?" Lebreau cut the awkward silence that quickly formed afterwards.

Guessing what this man was like, already they had doubts on receiving an answer, so they looked to Serah for them. She herself looked just as perplexed. Giving them a slight smile she announced in a nervous breath,

"I think I'm going to go after her." She ran out of the house.

Travis prepared himself to be bombarded with questions from the two behind him.

* * *

><p>Lightning didn't know where she was going; all she knew was that she didn't want to be in the same house as that bastard. She expected when she went back no matter what she was going to get an army of questions about her reaction to seeing him, but she was in no mood to answer.<p>

All the going ons lately had put her into one hell of a bad mood, and she did not need him to make it worse. She didn't have doubts he would try to talk to her, he had tried through the years after she had become 'Lightning'; he was too stubborn to accept she was different from the girl he knew as a kid.

This was getting too much; she didn't need to hear his idiotic questions when her mind was focused on what it was focused on. For God's sake a serial killer was on the loose, and no one knew who the hell she was. There was no records of previous accounts of murder that were even similar to what she did; it was obvious the latest ones could not be her first, not if she was getting away with it like she was. It was sickening how young this girl supposedly was.

They had recorded ten deaths that were more than likely caused by her, nine were all done in the same way and the tenth had occurred on the same night she'd last encountered her. Sure it was a very different way to kill someone for the last victim but she had been wandering around town that night, that part was known, so no doubt it had to be her. Bloody psycho.

She didn't need more on her plate; she got annoyed enough by Snow and his gang; that was never going to change even if she didn't want to murder him anymore. She didn't need Travis to add to it. He was one of the biggest idiots she'd ever met, and he was too god-damn stubborn to admit it.

She sat down out of sight, wishing she hadn't been followed by anyone, not that she would be surprised any if she had been. She just wanted to clear her head right now. If only it was easier done than said. From here she could see a small part of the shore, water lapping at the sand. She hoped this was a less than predictable place to find someone. The wind was cool so close to the water, this spot reminded her of a place she used to go after her parents had died; but then both Serah and Travis found it and she stopped going to it.

"Stupid boy..." She sighed, laying her head down against a rock. She couldn't care less if she got any sand on her. Her secret hiding place had been sandy as well; she'd fallen asleep there once and got it all in her hair. Serah had flipped, but she had never cared.

Slivers of a memory were running through her head as she shut her eyes, of a time long gone, when her parents had been alive. It was all a blur to her now, she'd been six at the time and that felt like a lifetime ago. She remembered seeing her parents talking to another couple, her mother had her then three year old sister in her arms, soft pink hair tied into two short pony tails on the side. The other couple, who were visibly older had their teenage daughter clinging to their sides, asking questions if her memory was correct that were nought but stupid. She was sitting away from them, on what she couldn't even remember that part; she could just remember how she didn't want to talk. It was the first time she'd met Travis that day, he'd spent three long hours trying his hardest to get her to talk. For even at the age of seven he was already the determined-as-hell moron he still was today.

"Lightning!" An angry voice yelled, cutting through her thoughts. She looked up to see a ticked off Serah storming towards her.

Oh she was going to get it now.

"What was that!" She yelled as she got to her, arms held firmly by her side.

"You really can't guess?" She spat back, glaring up at her little sister, she thought she at least knew enough to take a guess why she ran off.

"No!" She screamed, it took a lot to get Serah angry and she sure was now. "You know it was never explained to me what the heck happened between you two, how am I supposed to know!"

If anything Lightning just wanted to roll her eyes at the moment. She didn't want to deal with this, not now.

"I got told it was." She muttered. She wasn't even looking Serah in the eye. That just put her into a worse mood.

"Claire!" She yelled trying to get her attention; hoping calling her that would do the trick.

It did, but resulted in a scowl from her sister. Even if no one was around to hear it she still didn't like being called that name. It showed that Serah was trying seriously to get her attention.

"What!" The older sister yelled back, she didn't even want to talk, much less have an argument. She just wanted to be left alone.

"Stop trying to ignore me while I'm trying to talk to you! Can't you at least attempt to listen!"

"And what if I don't want to talk?" She rose up onto her feet and pushed past her, not giving a damn that she almost knocked her over.

'What was wrong with her?' It had to be more than just Travis. Even he couldn't get her that angry. She worried that, whether Lightning knew it or not, it was her fault.

* * *

><p>She followed Lightning back to the house; even from here she could hear Lebreau and Snow attacking Travis with questions. Looks like he hadn't managed to leave yet. She couldn't actually hear the two asking the questions but Travis himself was quite loud.<p>

"No, it's hard to explain! Please believe me!" was the first thing she heard him say closely followed by, "I value my life thank you very much!" And then it went silent, she guessed it was because Lightning had just walked back into the house. She tried to hurry back before anything bad happened, but failed miserably. She heard a smashing sound and began running quickly; she got to the door to find Travis on the ground holding a bleeding nose. She looked up from him to see Lightning for one second before she disappeared from view in the hallway and slammed her door shut with a massive bang.

Snow and Lebreau looked plainly dumbstruck over what happened and when her eyes went back down to Travis, he was rolling on the floor laughing his damn head off. Well she had always doubted his sanity.

"Why do my ears hurt?" He repeated over and over in a voice almost silenced by laughs.

Yeah, he was pretty damn loopy.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for all the reviews I'v<strong>**e been given so far, you're all helping me make my Paranoia shut the hell up. And more will be just as appreciated.**

**I recommend Seeker of the skies stories, if you're interested of course. She doesn't have many readers and I'm being a good sister and promoting them.**

**Also if you are interested I r****ecommend you read 'Wing's of regret.' It's my torturous masterpiece of a fanfiction. But no one reads it an I'm depressed over it. It's only at the start but it'll get better, much better.**

**Jya ne and thanks for reading my pretties!**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	8. What happened

**(5,239 words) I originally intended for this to be short, but then it ended up being 5 thou, so it's not long, but it's not short either. My beta got this back to me so god damn fast, she's finally gotten it into her head that her beta duties come first. Though me and my sis have the same beta (Because our friend said she's good at spotting mistakes) and our beta keeps doing mine first instead of doing hers even when she gave her the DOCX first.**

**I didn't like my writing in the last chap, and I just wanted to put this in before advancing with the plot.**

**Ooh, I went to the Supanova pop culture convention a couple of weeks ago, I think I scared this Serah cosplayer I saw, I screamed my head off when I saw her. Also at one point I think we were stalking a Lightning cosplayer, we first ran into her near the bathroom, and I warned her that my sister and friend were going to somehow steal her cosplay. Also I went up to multiply people and asked them if I could hug them, those being a Sailor Venus, A Hatsune Miku, A kairi, another Kairi, a Yuna, A konata, this girl in an awesome olden day dress, an Axel, a Xion, a Fang, a giant teddy bear, a Tifa (It was pouring down rain and she was wearing what Tifa wears in the original game, I feel sorry for her), the mascot at the football game I was forced to go to and of course a Serah cosplayer. If I'd seen a V****incent Valentine cosplayer I would have not only hugged them I would have stalked them. Vincent is my husband.**

**Well that was irrelevant, now on with the story,**

**Disclaimer: I'm only plotting to get the legal rights to Serah and the Hylian loach, I don't own any games at all.**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 8: What happened<span>**

* * *

><p>Lebreau handed a tissue over to the near stranger, whose nose was still openly bleeding. He took it politely and held it against his bloody nose. He was sitting on a chair near the front of the house; they'd refused to let him leave without doing anything about the injury Lightning's punch had given him. Snow was sitting on a chair at the opposite end of the table trying to understand what just happened, and Serah was down the hall trying to convince her sister to come out and talk to her, which was failing miserably.<p>

"So why did she just do that?" Snow got out, his mind catching up slowly to what was happening.

Travis looked up and gave him an annoyed look, which despite what had just occurred it reminded him greatly of the one Light had given him earlier in the day.

"Do you realise that even if it was your business I still wouldn't tell you?" He snapped, making Snow want to jump in his chair. Since when was he angry? Just a minute ago he was rolling on the ground laughing his head off and claiming that his ears hurt, even when it'd been his nose which had been punched.

"Geez man I was just asking, don't have to act like that." Snow held up his hands in front of him like he expected he was going to be hit by the guy from the way he was acting, but taking into consideration what little he'd been told about him, he had severe doubts the man would try.

"Nothing wrong with asking right?" He paused and waited for a response, one which didn't come, so he continued. "I mean usually it's at least gotta take something to piss sis off, even with her having a short temper. No one gets like that when the other didn't do anything."

"Oh I did something." Travis interrupted suddenly. The blonde raised his eyebrows.

"Like what? I didn't see nothing."

"Course you didn't, because I haven't even gone near her in years, so what I have done is all in the past." He shrugged and asked for a new tissue, the other was starting to break apart in the damp parts. At least the bleeding had almost stopped.

"And she still hates you for it? Shit man what did you do?" Snow laughed out of shock.

Travis didn't give him much of a response, he was silent for a minute or two, and when he started rolling his eyes like he was stuck thinking of an answer, it occurred to him he wasn't going to get one.

"I'm a bastard alright? Is that good enough?" He muttered, the annoyed tone in his voice kept coming and going, but it was clearly evident in that sentence.

"Um, well it didn't exactly answer my question but…" He was made to stop when Lebreau sat down next to the brunette and with a mouthful of a bite of the sandwich in her hand, she asked him interrupting Snow mid-sentence,

"So is Light the most violent girl you've ever met? She is for most people." The raven haired girl half-laughed. The question was said in a mocking tone to him, Snow missed it but he didn't. Travis was aware she already knew the answer to it, she may be keeping it a secret but both those two knew 'Arianna' well.

"No, Claire is not the most violent girl I've ever met, thank you very much. To say that I've been told by another, very different girl that she was going to pour a bucket of bleach down my throat is proof enough of that."

He ignored the look he got at the use of her real name, but why should he care? Of course he knew it; Serah had told them earlier that their parents had been friends and Lightning was six when they'd first met. He'd known her as Claire long before she'd become 'Lightning'. Right now he had a slight suspicion that if he didn't leave before she came out of her room he'd be hit again. He knew for a fact that the girl to his side didn't have the slightest idea what the soldier's name was, and she certainly would have preferred her clueless.

"Bucket of bleach? Goddess man what is wrong with the people you know?" Snow was taken aback. The brunette stopped sending glares to the raven haired girl and looked back to him. "Oh she's not the worst, my stalker's the worst."

"S-stalker? This is what I'm talking about!" He yelled.

Travis heard light footsteps nearing the front room from the hallway, meaning Serah had given up trying to talk to her big sister and was returning to them. He was silent for only a second longer. He didn't care that the girl on his mind was really her. Even if the 'Serah' in his mind was different to the Serah here, they were the same. He'd talk in as much detail as he wanted to, besides giving out a name so as to avoid getting the shit bashed out of him. He wanted to girl to feel guilty for what she was; he was more than obliged to say it.

"She's a leukophobic schizophrenic psychopath who loves knives, has twisted ideals on love and is a mastermind over how the human mind works. She is to be honest the most polite and kindest girl I know, but that has never stopped her for owning all the others in the violence department." He smiled angelically, a sharp contrast to what he did happen to be talking about.

Serah stood by the hallway watching him say that. Obviously there was a certain person in the room that wouldn't have the slightest idea he was talking about her, which made a sick feeling rise up in her stomach. She knew she'd never gather up the courage to tell anyone about her other self, and she knew Travis wouldn't do it either even if he knew as much as he did. He wouldn't say it to Snow because he'd fear he'd get punched, and he wouldn't say it to Lightning for similar reasons, also that he would never want to hurt her like that. She was almost completely clueless of what had happened between them like everyone else was right now; she knew that what was between them or ever was...well, it was complicated, to say the least.

Lebreau looked over at the hallway, and noticed her for the first time, quickly taking in mind to inform her, "Oh Serah, I'm going to keep in mind that if you ever tell me that someone is crazy, I'll take your word for it next time."

"Right." She mumbled dejectedly as her mind sank lower into a place best kept to herself. Snow saw her expression. He felt concerned, something was up right now; but even if Serah was usually pretty truthful with things he had a feeling that this time he wasn't going to get an answer.

…

Latter in the day they'd finally allowed Travis to leave thanks to the bleeding having stopped; Serah had gone back to trying to get Lightning to talk to her, but in the end failed like she had expected she would. They had to guess he'd gone back to his house after that since he left pretty much without a word.

It was around a day afterwards, when Serah spotted him again; he was sitting near the shore, the water close to lapping at his feet. He was flipping a small stick with his fingers absent-mindedly.

She was teaching at the moment, but she'd given her students a break for the next twenty minutes for lunch. Usually at this point in the day she'd be hungry, but her stomach wasn't rumbling at all and so she had no need to run up to the house and grab a quick bite to eat. Instead she decided she could go talk to him. What he said almost always lacked sense, but she hoped that maybe she could get something this time. She had a possibly serious matter that she was aware he knew to talk to him about. She'd been bugging him about it since she'd been 12 years of age; she was far too stubborn to let it go.

As Serah got closer to the spot he sat at, she felt a strange feeling come over her. It was like a shadow whooshing by her, and consuming her heart with heavy despairing emotions. To her everything froze in the one second, it was like to her, there might as well have been no people there at all. It all seemed gloomy as she adjusted to the darkness that had chosen to overcome her. There was a sound booming in her ear, a laugh of sadistic nature. Whispering and muttering ever constant, never stopping, it could never stop, it would never leave. It told her, if he knew, why care? Why did she have to be her fake self she'd created by sheer force of will when it didn't matter if he was faced by the truth?

Arianna just wanted to break lose, and she couldn't do anything to stop her. She was glad no one stood near her but the man at her destination; she'd much rather avoid facing them, in case they noticed that something was wrong with her.

When she stood only a meter or two away she noticed him singing a song to himself, she'd always thought he had a nice voice, even though she never really favoured the voices of men. She stopped for a second, she listened in to the melancholy emotions he for most of the time did his best to hide inside; it always came out when he was away from the face of others.

"All I ever wanted was to see you smiling; all I ever wanted was to make you mine." He sang softly to himself, his one onlooker didn't doubt that it was a tear she saw hanging onto the edge of his eye. He was always singing songs like that, either a story of a love that didn't make it or didn't get to be at all, always singing in such a distraught fashion. From the looks of things, you'd have to say, he'd been hurt in the past.

She decided she might as well make herself known now. And if she was going to start sometime she was going to start it the same way she had since she was 12. Had to wonder how annoying it was to him. She took three steps and stood at his side, but he was so caught up by his song he failed to notice her presence. A shadow of a smile lingered over her lips at that. It had always been that way, even to the last time she'd seen him excluding the day her sister had almost broken his nose.

"So what happened between you two anyway?" the question came out in a higher pitch from habit, well Arianna wanted to come out and play didn't she? If she'd been 'Serah' at the moment she would have said it in a tone full of questioning curiosity, but being her other self it was much closer to mocking laughter, she wanted to see his reaction when he noticed she'd been there. It'd be funny.

Travis's eyes snapped up to see her cheeky look and accompanying smirk, immediately startled he dropped the small stick and jumped up off the sand.

"S…Serah?" He said it like he believed he was hallucinating. She put on a faced of pretend hurt and put a closed hand in front of her mouth, looking as angelic and innocent as she could.

"Who else?" She giggled. Arianna loved to mess with him, his reactions were so hilarious. The older boy scrutinised her for a second and bit his lip.

"She wanted to play did she?" He inquired, even though he was more than aware of the answer. Only Arianna altered her voice to him, Serah had no need to.

"Why not?" She shrugged with a childish face, "But could you answer my question now? That'd be nice." His tone rapidly darkened, he understood her reason to be angry, but the sudden anger made him shiver. He knew what the girl was capable of.

"You know that's none of your business what happened between me and Claire. Could you give up now? That was years ago." He glared back, but his voice wasn't cross, just irritated slightly from her extraordinary stubbornness.

"Oh my goddess!" She breathed out through clenched teeth, it was mean but he held no positive feelings for the girl, seeing her lose it was fun. She didn't deserve an answer from him. He had to question why she had chosen to alter her voice in that sentence, and why it stuck to that for her next sentence.

"She's my sister! I have a right! Doesn't yours know?" She stamped her foot hard into the sand.

He rolled in his eyes; honestly he was more concerned over her voice change than replying to her.

"She was also 22 at the time, you were 12. I didn't want her to know the nosy bitch found out anyway. And plus who are you mimicking now?"

"I girl I met once! It was the others who knew her, don't ask!" She yelled flapping her arms up and down, she'd better hope no one was looking in their direction right now; they'd be greeted by what must have been a strange sight.

"You weirdo! How did you learn to mimic her if you only met her once? And god that's a weird accent!" He eyed her startled.

"It doesn't matter, I can mimic my mother and she died years ago. I kinda ran into Lightning in this mood and was talking like her, it was too dark for her to see it was me but I think she certainly noticed the voice similarities as she gave me this real weird look but…" She paused to breathe as she'd shouted that entire part, lucky no one was near them, "Oh god I'm a bitch aren't I?" She froze up with a blank stare.

Travis had to use all the restraint he could not to laugh that it took that long for it to click. "Yes you are, now how 'bout leaving me alone?" He growled, she jumped as a response, snapping out of her mood.

"But you didn't answer my…"

"Leave." He scowled furiously.

"Whoa, what's with the sudden anger? You need to control yourself." She backed up and took in deep breaths to calm herself down. She didn't like to stay as Arianna for that long, especially considering where she was.

"This from the girl with multiple personalities. That's a form of schizophrenia did you know that? I would have to say that's a lot worse than me being bipolar."

She gave him a hurt look, which was enough to know she'd returned to normal and Arianna had been locked inside again. Arianna wanted to torture him because of his problems, Serah pitied him for it.

She took one last look and walked off finally, leaving him by himself. Once she was gone he let out one big sigh and fell to the ground. His head felt sore from the impact but he couldn't care less. It was only physical pain; soon it would leave. The mental pain was the pain that bothered him.

He could vividly remember when things had been so much simpler for him, he wondered if it had ever been that way for Serah. Even years before Arianna existed, she still had the same 'habits'. God he wished he didn't know about this other self she had, if only a little. Things could be less complicated if he didn't have to keep her secret.

…

Travis could remember the day to a startling clarity. He'd been sitting on the sand, in a little cove off from the main part of the beach. It was small and usually difficult to get to, but from his house he had a clear path almost so he had the opportunity to go here a lot.

The sun was setting and an orange glow had been cast across the darkening sky, the low tide of the water flicking at his feet. The wind was glowing ever colder with each passing minute as the sun sank between the hills. His sister would go on a rant when she found out he'd been out here again, she believed it was bad for his health to always be out in the cold. He had his back against a leafy plant, and was running one hand through the yellow-white sand while the other held in a partially broken earphone. He'd been enjoying being by himself in this silent cove. So he felt a little surprised when he caught the sound of voices, he made out three individuals, all girls.

He tilted his head to the bridge above him; it crossed over the cove and over the rocks to either side of him, at its ends was a shopping district and the well-loved beach. The area was almost deserted sides him and these three girls, most had already returned home for the day in fear that the black clouds gathering over the horizon would ruin their day. Thanks to that he could hear them quite well. At first he didn't have a care, it was a crowded beach town, you overheard plenty each day, but when he heard the conversation took a turn to the dark side his full attention was brought to it.

"So he's dead?" A stern feminine voice inquired darkly.

Travis rose up onto his knees and shuffled over to get a view of the women, careful he wouldn't be noticed.

"Yes, and don't worry, we didn't leave behind any evidence. Ari made sure of that." A girl younger than him answered. She had raven hair, tied up into a high pony tail with white ribbons. She had on a pair of tattered leather shorts with tights under them and a sleeveless top that showed her stomach. Her eyes were the colour of faded jade, but still felt so bright, and had this cheeky edge to them both that despite them were unnerving. Something about her was familiar, but not so familiar that it was like she was a friend, but he didn't doubt he'd seen her face more than once before.

It was the girl clinging to her that was what got his attention, now she was familiar. That same face, it couldn't be anyone else, even that boy length brown hair couldn't change his thoughts. It seemed fake to him, it wasn't her real hair he could tell. And if it wasn't her face that told him it was her, it was those eyes, those sad blue eyes that were always trying to hide some secret fear.

"Of course she did, she'd my pretty little prodigy aren't you kiddo?" The tall woman he didn't recognise ruffled the child's hair. She had jet black hair, cut to frame her oval face. Her eyes were so dark, yet held a soft mothering look.

"Um...yeah." she replied, looking uncomfortable to a ridiculous degree. What was she doing here anyway? And what was with the wig? But he forced the thoughts away as he felt eyes on him; hastily he ducked under the bridge and away from their sights.

"What was that?" The unknown women muttered, "Shit there was someone there wasn't there?" He heard her panic.

"Mel go after them." She growled, he heard this 'Mel' move to go after him but for a reason he was yet to find out, her footsteps stopped as she reached the side of the bridge. But he got the answer quickly enough.

"Wait! I think I know them!" A more than familiar voice yelled at her.

He was right then on who the kid had been.

"Do I look like I care? If they heard something they weren't supposed to then they heard something they weren't supposed to. I can do whatever I want with them." Mel hissed at the younger girl.

Travis took this as his cue to get the hell out of there; something certainly wasn't right about these people. He picked himself up off of the ground and made a run for it. Sadly sand was a pain in the ass to run on, not like he didn't already know that, but he worried if that was going to put him in some real strife in this moment. He heard the girl Mel jump off and land on the sand behind him, he heard one more person jump down after her; he guessed that since one of them had tried to stop her previously she was simply continuing with the attempt.

He didn't chance a look back; he full on sprinted with the aim to get back to his house before anything bad could happen.

He tripped in the sand but was quick to pull himself back up; he only could hope that the fall hadn't cost him.

"Mel! Stop this!" The kid yelled at her companion, but from the sound of footsteps coming ever closer, he knew that this Mel had anything but stopping in mind. He tried to increase his pace but his weak body was having enough of the fast movements he was doing and he could already feel aches in his legs. He felt unsteady on his feet and was soon to fall back to the ground again. This time the fall had cost him and that Mel hauled him up by the collar. He struggled against her grip but the running had been more than enough to wear him out.

"Stop that you moron!" She hissed agitated.

"What make think I'm going to listen to you?" He yelled and tried to kick her shins but she moved her legs back and he missed.

"Because if you don't I'm going to kill you!" She laughed sadistically.

He swallowed a lump that had risen in his throat, shit this girl was nuts! He looked over to the little girl giving him a fearful look, she'd seemed unsure on what to do but that last comment cleared it up for her. Her expression became more confident, but held hints of the previous. She balled up her fists and screamed as loud as she could to the raven haired girl holding him.

"Let go of him, he didn't do anything!" That oh so familiar voice screeched.

Mel stopped and gave her an irritated scowl. "He heard something he wasn't meant to. Now what happens when people hear something they shouldn't?" She questioned her companion sinisterly.

The child froze up, her fearful expression returned worse than before. But she held in a streak of stubbornness that made her refuse to let Mel continue. "Leave. I'll sort this out."

Mel was taken aback, sure she hadn't said what she planned to do about this but it was a start for not wanting to do anything.

The raven shoved the poor boy back onto the ground harshly and spat on the ground next to his head. "Fine whatever, but I'd prefer his throat slit open." She growled and stormed off leaving her scared looking companion and Travis coughing his lungs off from landing too hard.

The kid looked back as her accomplice walked back up the rocks and onto the bridge, once she was sure the teen was out of earshot she turned back to the winded boy.

"Travis? Are you alright?" She asked softly and dejectedly.

He looked back up at her, he was breathing erratically and his coughing wouldn't stop. She was aware he had a body condition and that running must have been a lot for him. His eyes locked onto hers pleading for an answer; he looked so pitiful and confused right at this moment.

"S…Serah?"

She blinked in shock, but didn't know if she should be so surprised. Little was missed by his eyes. He'd know it was her even if she did her best to disguise herself.

"What Travis?" She wasn't even going to attempt and make him feel he'd gotten it wrong, he had an artist's eye; he could notice even the tiniest details.

"Wha…what's going on?" He asked, shaking. "Who were those people?"

"Mel and Crescent?"

"Yes! Who else?" He yelled in sudden anger.

She bit her lip, should she say it? Or should she just make him forget that this had ever happened? This had nothing to do with him, he didn't need to know. But if she said nothing to him about it he may tell others, and she didn't want to answer those questions.

"They're assassins."

In that one moment his eyes opened so wide if they'd opened any more they would have popped out of his head.

"Assassins? Then why the hell do you know them?" He begged with his voice becoming ever quieter.

She paused again and stared at him with tortured blue eyes, "Because I'm one of them."

He stared at her in purer disbelief.

"But…how…what…? You're 11, you have got to be kidding me.."

"I'm not, it's the truth." She interrupted him solemnly.

She could tell his mind was still refusing to take it all in.

"It's mother's fault, she had her connections to them, and Crescent wanted one of her kids to help her. If I hadn't stopped her she probably would've tried to get Claire too, but she's too much like Daddy, I didn't want her to be a part of any of this." She explained with a voice losing its emotion steadily.

He searched her eyes, trying to find some kind of fault that would scream out that this was all one grand lie, but he didn't find anything. No one could teach their eyes to lie, and they were telling him that this was unfortunately all true.

"So she doesn't know anything?" His panicking mind inquired.

"Nothing, she doesn't have a clue."

"You have to tell her!" He picked himself up and grabbed onto her forearms, eyes pleading with her.

"No I can't, she won't believe it. I'm all she has, don't you dare break the illusion!" She cried and snapped herself out of his grasp. She stepped back out of his reach so he didn't try it again.

"Then I'll tell her. Whether or not she believes me, someone has to know something like this. It's wrong." He muttered, fear overtaking his ability to speak.

Serah rubbed her cold arms, the sun had already fallen and darkness was quickly taking over the area. The wind was unforgiving to say the least.

"She'll hurt you something bad, and then I'll kill myself. She can't know." She looked back up to him with those same tortured blue eyes, he'd always seen it, but he'd never thought into it. She was an orphan; that could have been so easily the source of her problems, he wouldn't have thought this in his wildest dreams.

"You'd actually kill yourself? But you said she wouldn't bel…"

"Trust me I'd much rather drink a bucket of bleach then let her know." She back stepped again as his traumatised eyes bored into her.

"For your safety and for any you tell, you have to keep this a secret, or Mel will no doubt go through with her plan to end you." With that she ran off, leaving him in the darkness, to be tormented with the knowledge of her darkest secret, which he knew he could never tell anyone.

It was the first of his burdens.

…

His mind slowly drifted back into reality, he could see Serah had gone back to her teaching duties, acting like that conversation had never occured between them. It was strange; she was more concerned over what had occurred between him and her sister than his knowledge of 'Arianna'.

Still he knew even if she was more concerned over other things, it still for obvious reasons had to remain a secret. The last time he asked her what would she do if he told Claire was a good reason, in her words exactly she'd said, 'I'd run off to where no one could find me and proceed to go drink a bottle of bleach and then Mel would force you to down a bucket of the stuff.'

She'd been smiling; the psycho had actually been smiling as she said it for goddess' sake. She'd welcome her own demise; she cared that little for her life.

…

The sun was soon to set and Serah was making her way back home, her conversation had been pushed to almost the back of her mind, she had her students to thank for that. They were good kids, always so happy even if they found learning to be boring; it was funny what they said about it. They'd helped get her out of her bad mood, even if they hadn't been remotely aware she'd been in one in the first place. Well, most people wouldn't have known she'd been in one She was a good actress.

As she neared her house she ran smack bam into someone. Swiftly she backed up to apologise to him, but was stopped by his quick talking.

"It's alright cutie, you don't have to apologise, just gotta be careful next time now don't you?" He smiled a cheeky smile at her. If she was a shallow girl she would have a very different reaction to this man, the reaction he wanted to be exact. But she was more tempted to punch him than anything else, but she had the restraint, after she was supposed to be playing the good girl.

"Um…alright?" She tried to push past him but he grabbed onto her hand. "Oh, what's the hurry pinky?" He beamed the same smile as before. She was no fool; she knew what he was getting at.

"I have a fiancé you know." She informed and tugged at the arm in his grip.

"Well I don't care as long as you don't." She rolled her eyes at the comment and continued on what she was doing.

"I do care actually, plus I don't have the slightest idea who you are."

"Name's Karl, what's yours sweetie?" He asked with fake politeness.

"You don't really need to know. If I recall there's some guy named Karl that apparently all he does is laze around all day and doesn't give help to anyone. You don't happen to be him do you?"

"Do you care about that?" He said after a minute of silence, and oh just when she thought she had gotten him to shut up.

"Yes I do," She ripped her hand out of his grasp and walked off as far away from him as she could.

He called out to her but she wasn't listening; the idiot, the stubborn idiot. She'd heard a word or two about him from Snow and Gadot, said that he's a real lazy ass-hole that spends his days hitting on women. She got what they meant. Geez, people would be better off without him around.

Yeah, they would be better off without him.

Oh shut up Arianna.

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><p><strong>That part at the end is a bit of an inside joke, I personified my paranoia and called it Arianna, so i'm constantly saying to myself, 'shut up Arianna'. It was just way too tempting not to put it in.<strong>

**Reviews will be much appreciated especially since my readers haven't been reviewing recently and I refuse to lose to my friend for number of reviews per story. I know that you're all going to ignore this and even saying that you're going to all ignore this isn't going to get me some kind of pity from you because the only one that understands the full extent of my paranoia is my big sister, so I wait for yet again her being my only reviewer. **

**I recommend seeker of the skies stories and my precious 'wings of regret' but yeah I know this is going to be ignored even more then my plea for reviews, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop.**

**Jya mata ne thanks for reading.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	9. Letting go

**I'm sorry if it's been awhile, but I've been really slack with my writing lately. My beta is having computer problems so she hasn't gone through this, so I apologise in advance for any mistakes. Plus from now on I think I'm going to write a flashback in every chapter, what 9 is a really weird number to start such a thing? don't care, the flashbacks are more planned out then the rest and I would say more happens in them.**

**Does anyone hate Travis? Cause if not I'll make you hate him later on. Also I'm going to start hinting what happened between him and Light in the coming chapters. Yay.**

**Now this, **

**I CAUGHT THE HYLIAN LOACH, THE MOTHERFUCKING LOACH MOTHERFUCKER! five weeks ago...**

**Sssh, that didn't happen.**

**Is it weird to enter a classroom and the teachers disappeared and one of the guys and screaming his head of and throwing chairs across the room at another guy who took shelter under the teachers desk? Because that's what happened to me.**

**Well that's all I can think of saying, so enjoy the chapter.**

Disclaimer: I no own this.

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><p><span>9) letting go<span>

* * *

><p>A twelve year old Travis was traversing a pile of rocks near a piece of hidden beach. The ground was cast into deep shadow from the towering house above him. He'd always thought it was a beautiful looking place, too bad now that if those two do indeed stay there it would feel so empty and cold.<p>

Serah had told him where this was, saying that 'sis likes to go there heaps', in her cute child's voice. He didn't think he could do anything, and even as young as he was he knew he might just make it worse in the end. But he wanted to do something to help, he didn't care if Claire didn't like him, he still saw her as a friend.

He jumped down from a set of rocks, doing his best to keep his footing as he landed. If he even got one cut on him his mother would worry to a ridiculous degree and he wouldn't be able to leave her sights for a month. If that happened he surely wouldn't be able to come here. He found Serah resting her back against a rock; she was staring out at a blank lot of sand, from what she'd said her sister was just a little further on from where she was currently standing.

Quietly he tiptoed over to her, by that time the tiny eight-year old had sat down on the mess of dirt and sand that qualified for ground.

"It's all my fault." She dejectedly mumbled, locks of soft pink waves fell down her shoulders as a sob wracked her.

"Serah?" He knelt down, with his hand resting on the top of the rock she sat against.

The girl jumped up in surprise, her face mimicking that of a kid who had been caught red handed in the cookie jar.

"Travis!?" She could feel her heart beating in her ears; she wouldn't have said that if she had known that someone was there, why hadn't she heard him?

"Serah, what were you saying before?" He asked innocent of any possible truth, with purer curiosity fuelling his thoughts.

She shook her head which made her short hair flick about, "It's not important, Anyway-" She lifted her head back up and pointed a tiny hand to a large rock around three metres away to change the subject. "I can't see her cause I'm too small, but she's just past there if you want to talk to her." She finished and ran past him.

His brown eyes followed her as she climbed up the set of rocks he'd taken to get down here; he noted the ones she used would make it much easier to get back up. She must have come here plenty of times before. She was gone in a matter of seconds so he shook his head to rid his mind of the wonder over what she'd been talking about and went to find her sister.

He found her at the shoreline with the salty water lapping at her feet. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, face staring straight out to the sea. The sun set in the distance turning the blue sky to a beautiful gold and casting the rest of the world in grey. Claire had the remaining light flickering over her and the tiny piece of beach that had been hidden behind the huge house that had previously belonged to her parents.

They were dead now, and she didn't even know why. The police had said it must have been an accident of sorts, and as no evidence was found to disprove it, they all went with that. A part of her still couldn't wrap her mind around it. It was so sudden, bad things weren't supposed to happen to good people!

"Claire?" He crept up to her and crouched over the ground she sat on.

She flinched as she heard his voice. She jumped to the side to see him there. Her face read surprise for less than a second before it turned to anger.

"Go away! I don't want to talk to you!" She yelled, she sounded even louder form the silence of their surroundings.

"You never want to talk to me." Travis sat down on the sand besides her, in a stubborn manner. It was true what he said, she never did, since they'd first met. Honestly he hadn't even known what she'd sounded like until last year when he'd been standing near her and Serah had been bugging her with a question.

"Well I especially don't want to talk to you now! Go away!" She screamed now. Her cerulean blue eyes shone in the remaining sun; turning them into little blue flames.

"What if I don't want to?" He replied immaturely, he knew he wouldn't win this battle but he'd forever be too stubborn to ever fully admit that to himself.

"Just go away! There's nothing you can say so go away!" She kicked the sand next to him as a threat it'd be him next.

"I know there's nothing I can say that will help, I'm not going to claim I understand. My parents are still alive, I can never understand what it's like to lose people you care about that much."

He continued to look forward, so he didn't see her reaction. She had turned deathly silent, and stayed that way for a long time. Surely she wouldn't have expected such a mature response from a kid, he laughed at that thought, he was older than her, and was still treated like he was a baby.

All month people had been giving Claire and Serah their pity and sympathy, when Claire wanted neither. She didn't want stupid people to be telling her that they understand when they don't. She must've been so sick of it, that was why he wanted to help her so bad, but he didn't know what to do. His only start was to do the opposite.

"Just go away." She muttered sobbing; he looked up to her to see tears flowing from her pretty blue eyes. They looked tortured.

He looked away as she turned around. She was young, but she wanted to be strong, to be strong for her sister. She was much weaker than she wanted to be, and he knew she hated it. She wouldn't want to be seen crying, that was why she was here.

He nodded even when she couldn't see and walked off. He followed the path back to the staircase of rocks and carefully climbed that back up. He rounded the front of the house to see Serah was nowhere in sight. Meaning the kid had gone back inside.

He smiled a sympathetic smile directed to no-one that would be able to see it.

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><p>Serah hanged her legs over the edge of the platform, holding onto the railings with her hands. The sun was beginning the set over the horizon, and its golden glow was shining on her skin. The world was silent except for the sound of the wind and water lapping the sea-shore.<p>

Her pink hair was tucked into a grey hat, not a stand had fallen out; she'd made sure of it. She was sitting on the veranda of the old house on the outskirts of new Bodhum, she'd come here from a mixture of boredom and so Arianna would stop bugging her. It got stressful always hearing her in the back of her head, and knowing she was never allowed to let her out near anyone but Mel. And even then it was when she was by herself and not trying to keep up her fake personality.

Sometimes she wondered how the girl kept up that façade; at least her own personality was real.

It was easier being by herself; she could say or think whatever she wanted and she wouldn't have to worry about it like she usually did. When she was out here, she felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her chest.

It was…nice.

"So what are you doing down there?" A voice appeared behind her.

Serah tilted her head to see Mel standing with her back against the wall and arms crossed. It was strange seeing her without her contacts; she was so used to therm. It was strange as well, knowing it was perfectly fine to call her by her real name. She had a curious look on her face. She would know the truth somewhere inside her head.

"Bored, I guess." She mumbled and returned her eyes to the horizon.

"Oh come on, I know that's not true." She chuckled and sat down beside her, resting an arm on the shoulder closest to her.

"There's always one little reason you come here, and it's something much more than just simply being bored." She laughed again.

Serah rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Even if what you're thinking is true, it's still too early for that kind of thing. I wouldn't chance it with the sun up." She replied, half ignoring her. There was a little way Mel would act if she was with her and her only. It was about the only thing in her real personality that had any similarities at all to her fake one. Mel was well aware she was doing it, and would have to know as well how useless it was, but it didn't stop her. She every now and then, would be um…how to put it? Flirting with her let's say.

And when it happened, she commonly resorted to ignoring her hoping that it would make her stop. It didn't, but it was better than the opposite.

"So are you going to?" the raven haired women laid down on the miniscule veranda, with her arms behind her head.

"I wasn't, I was just enjoying the sunset and being by myself before I had to go back. But now you've put the idea in my head."

She could hear Mel laugh again. "It's funny how everyone thinks you're the good girl."

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><p>The sun had just set; the settlement would still be busy and working even at this time. She had plenty of time remaining. Sometimes Snow and his gang would work until the early hours of the morning, Lightning wasn't much better herself.<p>

She really hadn't been thinking about this at all, but when Mel had simply mentioned it, she felt a wave come over her, and she knew it would refuse to leave until she indulged it with what it oh so craved. She had left the broken house minutes before sun down, dressed in a short black wig with green streaks and emerald contacts. Her clothes consisted of simple blue jeans and a short sleeved top, with gloves covering up to her forearms. Her boots were blank on the bottom, and without a heel, so if a mark could be found from them it wouldn't be helpful as it should've been. Everything was covered up, so she'd leave as little trace as herself as possible. It was bordering on the stupid that she always went to such lengths to leave nothing behind but the corpse itself, as she knew for sure that her fingerprints were not on file. There wasn't a point; she was the good girl wasn't she?

Arianna found it hilarious, but Serah believed it stupid, that they could be so taken in by a façade. Oh if only she wasn't such a convincing actress, sure the personality 'Serah' was real now, but it hadn't always been.

She forced herself away from her thoughts and led herself to the address she'd required a day or so ago. She had semi asked it in an off-handily manner to a mother of one of her students and had been given more of a detailed reply then she actually needed. Perfect thought that little sadistic part in her head, another part was sad, that the woman could be so trusting to give someone the address of a person they disliked. Sad again; that when her target turned up dead, the woman wouldn't even go near the thought that her son's teacher was the murderer. She must've barely noticed she'd said the address. A part of her wondered why she knew it; she knew she was a single woman, but having anything to do with that man seemed so low.

Serah's outfit could be well considered inconspicuous; it was best because she knew that at least her outward appearance beyond the clothes was not one of a person she'd once met in this place. She could only hope no one would notice her.

She froze for a second when she passed by the spot Snow and Gadot were helping another group of men, fixing up something or another. She was too far away to make out anything; she could take a guess and say they wouldn't have been able to see her either. Her only reason to have frozen up was because her mind had done a 360 degree turn on her. She'd been giggling a second before, and now her mind was screaming negativity and made her sick. She ripped her eyes away and continued to make her way to the building, choosing to watch her feet instead.

'Shut up Serah, we don't need you in this situation!' The Arianna part of her mind yelled in a sudden anger, her mood had been ruined; and so easily too.

She found herself stopping in her steps again.

'But I am Serah, How can I shut myself up?' She bit her lip hard; her thoughts were getting too muddled up to make sense of.

'Shut up shut up shut up shut up!'

She took a deep breath, and forced back a load of tears that wanted to fall. She didn't doubt that she'd switched back in personalities before she'd accomplice what she wanted to achieve. It didn't' happen often, but when it did it was hell. She always felt like something was choking her when her good personality was in control, Arianna didn't like to take back step to her. She needed to get her way once in a while or Serah wouldn't be able to take the suffering, the choking sensation could only go away when Arianna had recently been let out. She needed to right now; she couldn't run off without doing a thing. Someone needed to die tonight

Her fists were clenched tight, and by sheer force of will was she trying to let her dark side take over. Funny how her mind worked, Arianna would always be there in the back of her head constantly begging for freedom, but now that she wanted her out, she was hiding somewhere she couldn't find.

It worked eventually, but only after a full five of struggling to let her darker thoughts take over and forcing out her kindness and sympathy. Pfft, who needed sympathy at a time like this? Bloody hindrance it'd make. She smiled when Ari fully got control. That weight in her chest dispersed only to be replaced with anticipation and excitement.

She strode with a skip in her step as she sauntered the rest of the way. A small giggle escaped from her mouth every now and then. Funny, how she could feel so excited that she felt like a child, in a situation like this. Of all things! She laughed as the thought danced about in her mind, she really was messed up. If Serah had control, she'd be all depressed at the thought, but Ari saw it as something that for sure was nothing but hilarious.

She found the building with relative ease, happy to know that anyone who noticed her was simply curious to know what she had that made her laugh like so. Filled to the brim with childish joy, surely they'd believe it's been something nice and innocent, never that she was just ecstatic that'd she'd been killing someone tonight.

The first floor was empty sides minute amounts of furniture; it was void of all life but her. How good for her she thought with a chuckle. She found the staircase at the end of the room, shoved in between an overgrown fern from goddess knows where and the door to the men's bathroom. The stair case was one of the few parts of the building that didn't look like they'd been rushed. Not to say it looked like a mess, but when no one was a professional, some things weren't as good as they could be. Some parts were missing a layer of paint and some parts were just plainly missing paint and you could see the blank grey wall behind them. And this was an improvement. Geez.

From what memory told her, her target lived on the second floor, she failed to remember which, but she predicted that she could figure it out if she listened carefully. It ended up with her having to put her ear against the door, but if it helped it helped right? The first three rooms sounded devoid of people, the next one was a mother yelling at her children (now that one didn't need to have an ear against the door), and the next was a couple speaking. She knew it was impossible to be him because the man in that room was talking far differently.

She was almost to the end when she put her ear to the door and heard nothing but breathing. This either pointed to one occupant or that no one was simply in a mood to be talking. She took it to be a higher chance that it was one occupant because families had a tendency to live more closely to the middle of New Bodhum as that was the safest place to live. The outskirts brought on fear of Pulsian creatures attacking, which was common and was why fixing up broken houses was a daily phenomenon.

She took a step back, intent on listening in to the remaining rooms before choosing this as a definite. She disliked being wrong to an excessive degree. But just as she had taken that step and turned her back to the door, it opened. For one second and that second only her heat rate sped up in fear, but as soon as she turned around and saw a familiar face, that fear was gone as soon as it had appeared. There was no reason to fear being caught, in fact, she smiled actually.

"What you dong baby?" A tall man, more on the lanky side if anything, asked leaning his back against the door; his hair was cut short and was closest to being a light brown. Karl, the man who had made the mistake to bothered her not a week back. Trying his dandiest to be cool she figured. Too bad she knew how much of a loser he was.

"Nothing much, walking about I guess." She chuckled; she ducked her head so he didn't see the joy she felt at finding him. There was no doubt in her mind he'd mistake it for something else.

He smiled; a broad grin to be more specific. "Do you wanna come in, plenty of room for a pretty young girl like you." He let out a slight laugh.

She gave him a smile back, Serah knew for sure that he had not misread her delight and eagerness, but he did have the wrong idea over its existence.

"Sounds like I good idea." She winked, as her hand rested over the knife hidden in the bag strapped to her thigh.

* * *

><p>Serah stood in the middle of the tiny lounge room, observing even the little details. She didn't have an outstanding reason to do so, but if a victim got the chance to run it was best to have an understanding of your environment so they wouldn't be given the upper hand.<p>

"Do you want a drink or something?" Karl's cocky tone brought her away from her thoughts.

She smirked; darkness laced her eyes, hinting sinister intentions. But no doubt, he had misread the expression.

"I'm fine, it doesn't matter." She replied in a tone far higher than her usual out of habit. Arianna was like a psychotic five year old, and that's how she wanted to talk.

She could see him out of the corner of her eyes, nodding slowly as he slowly came into the centre of her view. "What's you name anyway beautiful?" He smiled that annoying grin of his. She had seen it plenty of times before, more than she was likely to name. She would claim that she had only at first heard of him from NORA complaining about his laziness day in day out. But she knew about him long before she'd met any of them.

He'd been in a fight club, she used to sneak out and watch the fights late at night. They were in the middle of where a number of alleyways combined, in what was most definitely the worst part in Bodhum. Not once had she been allowed to join in, because of her young age, but she'd been at least able to stay on the side lines. Her face became more well-known than Karl's there, and he would be winning an average of 9 out of 10 times. She doubted that 'face was the proper term to be using, considering it had always been in the early hours of the morning and no one could see her face clear enough, and even if they could she had on green contacts and a black and green streaked wig not unlike the one she wore now.

"Luka." She answered after some thought, it was the name she'd given to those boys all those years back at the age of 12. She was merely curious if his memory had retained it.

"Luka? Hey I've met you before haven't I?" He questioned her suddenly with wide eyes, she responded by faking a surprise at her own, acting like she'd only just noticed. Goddess, she'd noticed two months ago. But that brain of his didn't work very well.

"Yeah, I think so." She put a finger to her lip in mock thought, "Karl right? You were one of those fighter guys or whatever." It made her feel like she was being sucked into a whirlpool of stupidity, but she had fun dumbing down her way of speaking.

"Yeah," He chuckled and stormed right up to her to stand in front of her face. "You were that kid that always went." He grabbed her chin and looked deeper into her eyes, "Certainly no kid now eh?"

He leaned down and whispered into her ear. It tickled, but she forcible made herself have no response. Judging from the perverted things he was sprouting, a response was going to put her in an unwanted situation. Of course with a weapon on her side it was one she could easily get out of, but if he made her take the first strike, then the fun would be taken out of it all. She preferred when it was reasonless and out of the blue, they got so much more scared that way. She rested a hand against his chest, her fingers leaned over the bag concealing her knife; she really couldn't take it anymore. She shivered from anticipation; best thing was he was taking it completely in the wrong way! All the more better for her, he's going to be scared shitless.

With a smile that both beamed with delight and nefarious intention, she pushed him down onto the couch and climbed on top of him. He grabbed onto the sides of her shirt, he was severely taken aback by her suddenness, but his mind was taking it in faster that she liked. Still she couldn't help but widening her smile, at his horrible misinterpretation.

"You wanna know something fun?" She tilted he head and lifted up her shoulders in a cute manner, "Luka was never my real name. I just told you that because it made things simpler for me down the line." She smiled, this time he had to have noticed it; the whole atmosphere of the room had changed with it. It was sinister, gloomy, screaming horrific truths.

"Simpler for you down the line?" He repeated her words, and raised his eyebrow, not understanding at all.

"Yep." She answered beaming, before returning it to its wicked previous. "When I kill you all." With that she unclipped the bag on her leg and brought out the knife; her expression positively psychotic.

"Luka!" He screamed and grabbed onto her upper arm, one of the rare spots on her body left uncovered. "Luka! Don't do this, what did I ever do to you!" He screamed with tears building up in his eyes. So much for that tough guy act, what a wuss, sure she was about to end him and all, but tears? Come on.

She pried his hand from her arm, treating it like it was a piece of dirty rubbish. "Me? I don't know, maybe it was the countless times you hit on me, even when you knew I was with someone." She rolled his eyes, and the fear in his became of mix of terror and utter confusion.

"What? What are you talking about, I never…!" Then he froze, and his breathing became laboured. Everything was starting to hit him all at once, it occurred to him who 'Luka' really was.

"Wait, you're that girl from the other day, the one with that blonde guy! But she's one of the nice ones, she'd never—"A gloved hand covered his mouth, and a devilish snicker came his attacker's mouth.

"Never judge a book from the cover, but at least you figured it out before any of them did. Too bad you have to die now." She full on laughed out loud, she was taking delight in this. The piercing sound filled his every bone with dread. "And keep in mind, don't touch my arm you stupid moronic idiot. Well," She tipped her head; her black wig followed her face with the movement. "Bye!"

He only had one second to plead with his eyes with her, but of course, it was to no avail.

She brought up the knife, and brought it back down using all the strength in her arms. Blood splattered everywhere, and he would have died in seconds of the direct hit to his heart. The last thing he'd ever hear would be her psychotic laughter as she held the dripping knife to his chest.

He was dead, but she was in too good a mood to stop, so she brought up the knife again and again, and forced it back down into the soft flesh of his corpse, all the while his blood splattered all over her and his couch. Her laughter got higher and higher until her throat became too sore for her to continue. By now his torso was a gory mess with ribs and guts poking out amidst the wonderful blood. She resorted to giggling softly, she'd gone too far, but it'd been fun. Forcibly she made herself step off the cadaver, and make herself steady her breathing. Goddess that was brilliant.

If she was anyone else, this would be where she had a swearing fit when she realised that she was covered in head to toe in someone's blood. But seeing as she was Arianna, to her it was just hilarious, plus she wasn't one for swearing. She thought for a second, she couldn't be bothered much about the blood on the couch but maybe she should dispose of the body. She'd never been that violent in a long time. But she had to let her let it all out, frustrations and all; a person like Serah trying to contain someone like Arianna was hard work.

So she got to work dismembering the body so it'd be easier to sneak out. There must be a bag someone around here. She could guess that the bottom floor would still be empty, but to be safe she would take the back entrance. She's sneak around to the outskirts of New Bodhum, and bury the body somewhere where it'd take at least a week or so to find. Then she'd go get herself cleaned up and return home.

And no one would ever suspect her of anything.

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><p><em><strong>Chicken pie in soup in a fishbowl in a truck full of candy and cats eating ice-cream in soda eating hyenas screaming 'caka caka' whilst the giraffe looking on plays tennis against a vampire eating a banana on a giant ball of cookies and ducks covered in coffee on mars inside a flower coloured blue being pulled apart by a monkey in a top hat munching on caterpillars made up of watermelons and apples with worms in it who crawl into caves made of honey and cake. Far away a pack of wolves dance around a fire on top of a tall man's head, the flame explodes into a green firework and flies high into the golden sky dotted with caramel stars. The sun and the moon jump from planet to planet hand in hand, they sing of doom and destruction in a cheery tone and kicking along a great ball of cheese filled with dogs screaming 'hi'. The boy with bright red eyes took hold of the chocolate katana and smashed to pieces the laptop made of cookies and cream. It explodes into the face of a stone husky being batted with flies made of firecrackers coloured gold.<strong>_

_****_**Since I couldn't write this in class because of the murder scene, and I wanted to write something, and got this._  
><em>**

**I don't know what it is, but try to make something weirder I dare you.**

**Reviews will be much appreciated. jya ne!**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	10. useless

**(2,316 words) I would have finished this in three days, not five like I actually did, but I've been obsessing over Vocaloid. So blame Len. He's so god frikken Kawaii.**

**I hated writing this chapter, it's not fun unless someone's dying. And yeah, again it starts with a flashback. Gives a reason for Se-chans Leukophobia.**

**Disclaimer: I no own this.**

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><p><span>10) Useless<span>

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><p>"<em>Naww, it's not your fault, your daddy's just been a stupid little asshole. Kay kiddie?" A black haired girl giggled sadistically, grinning at the face of the petrified child in front of her.<em>

The memory played so clearly behind her eyes, at that point in time it had been her worst memory, now it had been replaced by many. Nether the less it had left an irreversible scar.

_A man whose name she could not remember had pissed off Crescent in some way or another, she hadn't been bothered to remember what he'd actually done; it was a story all too common. Mel had been ordered to deal with him, and that was how this situation had started. The raven haired girl had dragged her along to watch, she hadn't particularly wanted to, but she had been given no choice._

_Mel had killed the man, and without a second thought murdered his whole family to go along with it. His wife had gone first, for she had tried to protect him; then his son, then his daughter, and now his youngest. She was tiny, no more than five. She wore a white sundress, had darling big blue eyes so full of fear and silver hair brushing her shoulders tied to the side with a ribbon. The girl's appearance in the last seconds of her life was an image burned into the back of her head._

"_Please, don't hurt me!" she begged in her childish voice, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks._

"_Too late girly, far too late for that." Mel smirked; she placed a hand on the kid's shoulder to keep her down, even though she was already tied with ropes to the chair._

_Mel picked up a white bottle, its contents impossible to tell, but it was soon revealed not a second later as she tipped it into the child's mouth. The white liquid poured down into the gaping mouth forced open. The kid's eyes had turned into a waterfall, as she shook and gurgled on the contents. For one second only did she seem fine, until Mel brought the bottle away with a dark expression present. Almost immediately after the girl's body begun convulsing violently and blood was painfully coughed up, spilling from her pink lips. It was unsettling, watching it all occur in front of her, without doing a thing to stop it, or even wanting to._

_She knew the girl didn't deserve it, given a choice she would have made her live, but watching the death transpire in front of her, was exciting. And she knew that despite Mel knowing the five year old had done nothing wrong and that a girl no less than ten stood behind her watching in silence; she couldn't care less._

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><p>The sound of a bang snapped Serah from her daydream. She shook her head to get the remainder of the memory out, it came back constantly in her dreams, but it had been a long time since she'd been stuck thinking about it whilst awake.<p>

She had no teaching to do, so she was hanging near Snow and his group for the day. They were helping fix up a house that had been attacked last night. The security around the settlement was being tightened so this would stop happening, but for now it remained a common occurrence. She didn't have a clue what she could do to help as she'd never helped before with this kind of work, but she was attempting to make herself useful as best she could; unfortunately that usefulness amounted to nothing but passing things up to those who were in a position too high up for them to even go near the ground.

She was standing a clear distance away from the wall that had fallen down, as she'd been commanded to earlier. Snow and Gadot were currently passing up planks of wood to a woman standing on the roof, so she could fix the part of the roof that had fallen down as the wall was smashed. She was lean and graceful on her feet, deadly sure of each movement she made. Much more useful to have than her at the moment, Serah frowned as the darker side of her mind had a sudden yet massive urge to destroy something. It didn't matter if she couldn't help here; she could do other things much better than some people she knew. Even though for most those things most of the people that knew her had no idea about it anyway.

The watched as Gadot helped lift another person to stand beside the woman; he was short so his lack of weight made there no chances of him making a hole in the roof. They were nailing down new planks; the area had been damaged in such a way that fixing the roof before the wall was actually easier. So far today all that had been done besides the current happenings was that the area had been cleared of gravel, chipped stone and shattered objects.

So to be honest besides the two on the roof, no one had been very useful today either. Ari found that highly amusing because the people deemed as useful were being about as useful as the one deemed useless. But Serah knew to keep that thought quiet, it seemed so uncharacteristic of her to think something so harsh.

"Oi, Pinky!" The burgundy haired woman cupped her hands around her mouth and called out.

Serah jumped being so unexpectant of it, she was beginning to think people had forgotten she was there.

"Y…yeah!?" She asked hiding the slight shock she was feeling.

"Can you pass me that there?" She pointed to an object besides the pink haired girl, who looked to see it was a box full of nails. They must have run out.

"The nails?" She called to confirm.

"Yeah, need some more kay?" Was the reply.

She nodded and picked it up, not overly surprised that it was much heavier than it appeared. She huffed and brought up the hefty object off the ground. It took a painful minute to reach the building but she got it there. Snow took it off her and lifted it up to the waiting woman standing on the edge above him.

"Thanks pinky." The woman grinned happily before getting back to work. She had been calling Serah by that nickname all day.

Serah rubbed her left arm; one of the nails had been poking out and had made it extremely uncomfortable to carry over. Snow noticed her expression and couldn't help but ask.

"Hey are you alright? It wasn't that heavy was it?"

His fiancé tilted her head up to look him in the face after staring at her dirty palms, she hadn't realised that box had been such a mess until this second.

"I'm fine, there was a nail sticking out, which kinda hurt. Frankly I think there's more reason to be bothered by this," She showed her palms, covered in dirt, giggling just a little.

"I guess so," He looked back up to the workers on the roof. "You can go back if you want you know, you don't have to keep waiting about here. We're fine."

Her expression changed to hurt but by the time he looked back she had hidden the pain back inside; she hated being made to feel like she was useless. So to hide her true thoughts she put on a sickenly fake smile.

"Kay, I think Lubreau already went back so that's someone to talk to." She beamed and twisted on her heel to leave. The faster she left the better, she felt like she was suffocating under her lies in that moment. She'd break if she continued.

"Bye," She waved without looking back, so no one would notice the tear rolling down her cheek. Snow said bye as well, and must have waved too knowing him. He had probably realised she had been hurt, that was why she didn't take one look back. She'd have to say, out of everyone she knew, he was number 2 out of who knew her best. Sure there was a whole side of her he had no idea about, but he knew enough to know how she felt when she couldn't help, how she felt when she realised she was useless.

Heh, she didn't even like being near Mel any more when it was just them. Because then she could slip into her real personality without worrying. And frankly, after everything that had happened, she preferred the fake one.

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><p>Lightning was at the GC HQ, her patrol had just ended. She reported back and with nothing more to do she was walking out with the intention of returning home. Unfortunately she rounded a corner too shapely and too fast and ended up bumping into a person heading in the opposite direction.<p>

"Ouch." The man complained as he knelt down to pick up the items he'd dropped.

Lightning bit her lip, annoyed at herself for doing something as stupid as that, and when she did something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. It was much smaller and different to the forms and other sheets the man had been carrying. A spark of curiosity led to her kneeling down and picking it up, it was an old photo of a little girl, with raven hair and big green eyes with her hair tied up with a humongous red ribbon. Frankly she looked scared.

The other only noticed after he'd gathered everything up, that she was holding it.

"Oh Farron?" He said from surprise, Lightning looked up from the picture she was holding. She'd seen him before. She'd first thought it had been a stranger she'd run into.

It was the same man that had asked for the information about the serial killer a whiles back; she was having trouble remembering his name clearly, but it was something along the lines of David.

"Um, sorry sir you dropped this." She held out the photo, slightly embarrassed over it being someone she knew. But her being her she wasn't going to show it.

"Uh, thanks, I forgot that had even been in my pocket. Thanks." He took it from her hand and put it in his chest pocket.

Lightning nodded, not giving a verbal response, she would leave but simple curiosity stopped her from doing that and she couldn't help but question,

"Sir, who was it in that photo."

"The girl?" He inquired, not quite expecting the question, "She's my sister."

"Your sister?" The next sentence had slipped out, she hadn't had it in mind to say it; it was only that the picture didn't appear that old of a picture, and the man before her was clearly in his forties at least.

He picked up her thoughts from her quizzical expression, "Well my much younger half-sister actually. I'm pretty sure she'd be about your age by now. I haven't seen her in years since…" He froze with his last sentence.

Despite trying to hide her emotions and keep her plain soldier face, she was having trouble not letting out her curiosity of what he was talking about. Something must have happened to this girl, because from what he was saying she could guess he hadn't seen her in a very long time.

"Sorry for stopping like that, it's not a thing I talk about often." He dug out the picture from his pocket. "Her name was Melissa by the way; I wouldn't even be able to tell you if she was still alive though, I haven't seen her since she was three. My mother was angry about her divorce and how quickly my father remarried and as insane as it might sound; she killed my father and his young wife before kidnapping Melissa. Nothing was ever found from either of them."

_W..what? _Taking into account the man's seemingly unaffected expression, such a thing would be the last option one would dare think of. The word shocked was nought more than a severe understatement right now.

David blinked in surprise like he'd suddenly remembered something he'd forgotten. He put a hand to his chin deep in thought, "Did I perhaps say too much?" He seemed confused if anything. From the looks, he was a little on the dense side.

"Maybe." He concluded, still not overly sure of himself despite the expression he'd made the other show.

He blinked again like he'd remembered another thing, "Well thanks again for picking up the picture, I really do have somewhere to get to so I'll be going now." He gave a slight wave of his hand before striding past her like nothing had happened, so Lightning decided to do the same.

But just before she was out of earshot he called out to her, "Oh, Farron, one thing I remembered just now. I know you've nothing to do with the investigation, but considering earlier events I'd think you'd be at least curious. I was informed earlier that the killer struck again, bringing the total up to 11 victims. And this time the attack was far more violent than her previous attacks." He finished and without waiting another second for a reaction, walked off.

But she didn't turn around anyway, so he wouldn't have been able to see her reaction even if he'd stayed. Lightning felt sick in the pit of her stomach, so she couldn't help her next sentence.

"Little sicko."

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><p><strong>Lightning's hard for me to write, it sucks. I think it ended up worse than usual because all I'm thinking of is Kagamine Len.<strong>

**I got KH:BBS! For $38! Yes Onee-chan Birth by sleep is more important than food.**

**Review and I'll give you a cookie, jya ne!**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	11. (ummmm, insert name here?)

**(4,899 words) um, Have I not updated in two months? If so, gomen Nasai. I'm trying to get back up to my average of ten thou words a week, I really am.**

**I went trick or treating for the first time in my life. I'm 15. I went with my sister and friend (0erbayunfang) and (seeker of the skies). We were in each others clothes because we all wanted something that each other had, not what we had. I now wish I had worn what my sister had but maybe I made up for by dressing up as ARIANNA. Sugoi desu ne!**

**and now the chapter...ooh I smell pancakes!**

**disclaimer: Sadly I do not own this.**

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><p>11) (I dead set went through all this again and still couldn't get a name to come to mind, HELP?)<p>

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><p>Serah was sitting on the couch in the living room. One of the NORA members was snoozing in their room, but they'd been in there so long she'd forgotten which one they were. The snoring was too quiet to try and guess from that alone.<p>

The heat outside was unbearable, it was so hot the beach outside appeared distorted. Inside was a great improvement, but it remained so hot that at some point Serah had folded a piece of paper to form a make-shift fan. She couldn't deny she was bored out of her mind, but nothing was of interest to her right this second. She hadn't the slightest clue as to where everyone was, she knew her sister was working, but had no details beyond that. Ari wasn't even interested in going and annoying Travis either. He made for the best entertainment, his reactions were hilarious and that way Arianna could have fun without getting violent. Though as for the afore-mentioned heat, she detested the idea of searching for him. His hiding places were getting creative like they had back in Bodhum, and in this weather she would be about ready to faint by the time she could spot him. Then being creepy wouldn't be fun.

Serah laid back on the couch, letting her left leg fall off lazily, her toes just touching the floor. A plus to having two minds inside one head was that she could have conversations with herself; unfortunately Arianna was still ecstatic over her last victim. His death had been undeniably violent, and the image was one stained at the back of her mind, as all the others. She knew if she was going to speak to Ari, and she was going to talk about that again, her mind would start to feel sinister, and she'd hallucinate that the walls were covered in blood. It wouldn't be the first time, if she couldn't torture anyone else, she'd torture Serah.

It didn't help that if she ever managed to deter that conversation, Ari would still repeat over and over how funny it was she wasn't even remotely a suspect. The fact that someone who personally knew them was aware of what was going on, and without a doubt hated her to the core, had Arianna overjoyed. It excited her; she was so obsessed with being hated, if her good side wanted love, she would refuse it. Serah agreed that she deserved nothing but hate from others, but pulling the wool over the eyes of someone so dear to her was sickening. But she couldn't help it. Arianna had too much control on her.

Even when Serah was not speaking to her, or letting her have full control, her voice full of a mockery of child-like innocence was always speaking at the back of her head. When it was the other way around, Ari couldn't hear her. Not a word. She was like a conscience that she could make disappear each time she chose it.

When Serah stood back up, slowly, her gaze lingered on the white paper fan in her, eyeing it oddly.

White.

What was wrong with it? Why was Ari so convinced it was bad? White was purer wasn't it? It wasn't evil, it wasn't disguising itself as innocence; it was innocence. Even so, allowing herself to concentrate so deeply on the white object had a bad effect on her mind, she was beginning to hallucinate. She saw dark shadows gather around her hand, they wrapped themselves around her, burning her skin. It hurt like hell; the skin was on fire, it was all emanating from the fan.

_Drop it! _

Arianna's voice hissed in the back of her mind. She complied and dropped it like it was a venomous spider and had bitten her. It fell little by little, spinning in circles, laughing at her as it prolonged her torture, until it finally hit the ground and she could breathe a sigh of relief. The heat had to be getting to her, or Ari, it might be both. But she couldn't tell, she'd rather it be the heat, at least then it didn't mean she was just completely and utterly insane.

_But we are crazy. _Ari reminded her.

_And whose fault is that? _Serah snapped back. Ari's tone was jovial, and it put her in a bad mood. But she despised being angry when she was still 'Serah'. If she was angry, she wasn't nice, and if she wasn't nice. What was she?

_A lie to trick everyone into loving you?_ Arianna asked with a laugh.

_That's not true, I'm not a lie made to please people._ She said to herself, and her alone, simply to reinforce her fragile state of mind. If she was fake, then she was undeserving of everything she had ever been given, and nothing made her sicker at the moment.

_Then why was I here first?_ Arianna asked, a straightforward question, said with honest interest.

It was a truth Serah preferred to blind herself to. She wiped her eyes, feeling like they were burning each time they spotted even the tiniest of objects, that just so happened to be coloured white. She needed sleep she decided; if she slept as Serah, Arianna would be blocked out; sleep was an invisible wall against her evil. She couldn't be mocked by her; she couldn't be hurt by her.

That was why the psycho would always make sure she couldn't reach the protection that her dreams would offer her. She ignored the complaints Arianna started up the moment the thought of resting popped up. The immature girl was even more bored than Serah, she wasn't done playing yet. Shaking it all out, she left the room, forcing down her emotions enough she didn't storm out. No one needed to know she was in a bad mood; the questions were best avoided, for the answers were truly insane.

"Are you alright?" A voice appeared from near the door. Not one she particularly wanted to hear, but she'd feel even worse if she ignored her. When Serah turned around, by instinct she put on an innocent act, she had taught her eyes to lie just for moments like this.

When she faced her sister, who was standing by the wide doorway looking nothing less than concerned, Serah's face was full of faked confusion.

"Lightning, how long have you been there?" She asked, avoiding at least at first the questions to come. She could act however she wanted to, but one thought had no intention of leaving her alone. _How much had she seen?_

She watched her sister intensely as she strode over to the couch she had previously been on. Serah hoped it wasn't obvious on the outside how paranoid she was. If she was sweating, she could blame it on the weather, even inside the heat was only that tiny-bit more bearable. But she could only hope she could have her face stay blank. Lightning sat down on the yellow couch, exhaling. She didn't seem exhausted, not even close, but she was far from perfect. The sun must've been affecting everyone today.

"I just got forced to take a break." The older women sighed, clearly that had gotten her in a sour mood. Sure people were only worrying about her well-being, but considering she would have nothing to do on any break she was given she'd be better off working. Work remained as the main part of her life, when she wasn't working she wasn't doing anything. Anything Serah offered that she could do to pass the time got turned down, they never interested her.

"Are you alright?" Lightning asked again, repeating the question her sister hadn't tried to answer.

Serah tilted her head like a confused puppy, and hummed to pretend she was thinking. It was such an innocent pose, and she used it often to keep up her illusions. "Yeah, why are you asking this?"

"When I walked in just then you liked like something was bothering you. Is it?"

Serah understood well enough her sister was just being concerned about her, to a level she'd probably never go near with anyone else. But the way she was looking at her, caused her anxieties to go crazy. She was looking into her blue eyes, to see something that she wasn't saying. She tried to tell herself that if her sister ever noticed something amiss with her, she'd go in denial and forget it. For Serah was an angel, a beloved princess, no evil could exist in her mind.

"Well the heat is, but that's about it." She answered after a pause, acting like she'd simply tried to think up anything that could've made her sister have such thoughts; she knew what it was instantly, but hell if she'd ever say it.

Going off her expression, Serah predicted Lightning was telling herself that everything had all been inside her head. It wouldn't be the first time, it had occurred almost daily when they were teenagers.

The younger of the two thought to leave now and have the nap she had thought of previously, Arianna was laughing now, just because Lightning was there. It had been happening ever since Lightning had first encountered 'Arianna', with no clue as to who she really was. The psycho enjoyed the torture. However, she had another thought overlap that. She had an inkling that it had to be her fault, that her sister had been in an increasingly bad mood over the past months, Lightning had always been sour, but this was above her average. If it was her own fault, she wanted to hear it from her mouth. Whether she wanted to talk or not.

"Hey Lightning," Serah piped up in question. Her voice quiet, almost timid. For once, the emotions true. She needed to know if Arianna was doing this, she wanted to know so badly, but if it was true she'd feel so sick. She was absolutely terrified to know in all honesty.

"Yeah." Her sister looked up to her, before thinking the conversation has been over.

"Is something bothering you?" She inquired with emphasis on the 'you'. Her eyes pleaded, mimicking one of a hurt puppy. Such a sad look; was like bribing someone with candy, because it would make them feel bad if they kept their mouth shut.

Lightning's mouth was open, she may have intended to speak, but nothing came out. She shook her head, and stood up, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get out of here. She was halfway to the door when Serah grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

She wrapped both arms around her right one, "Sis, come on, you have to tell me something at least. Something IS bothering you, the others are ignoring it but I won't. Something is happening and you have to tell me!" Even she was shocked when she'd almost screamed it. It hadn't been her intention; maybe her want to know had been even worse than she'd first thought.

Lightning was frozen there; Serah looked like she'd been hurt. It must feel like a punch to the gut that that was her fault. It never mattered who was in the wrong she always felt horrible for making her sister unhappy, even when in certain occasions she kept her mouth shut. Her grip was tightening as well; she wasn't going to get away without an answer.

She turned her head away and looked at her feet, as a distraction from the painful look directed to her.

"It doesn't matter Serah, it's nothing that concerns you." Was the quiet response that got admitted as a whisper from her sister's throat.

Serah felt a pang of guilt in her stomach, and winced. It could very well be all about her.

"Does it concern you either?" She asked disregarding that she should've be caring about what she'd been told.

"No, it doesn't really." Lightning divulged, "But it doesn't mean I should tell you either."

Behind her back Serah pouted, she loosened her hold on her sister's arm. Now only one arm held her, and only loosely around her wrist. She wasn't going to give up, no never. She was stubborn when times needed it.

"Fine, here's a deal. Either tell you dear little sister what is bothering you, or tell me what on earth happened between you and Travis. Frankly I'm more curious to the later despite being stubborn to hear the first."

Lightning tensed visibly, Serah doubted it was even the deal at all, more just hearing Travis's name. Her problem with him wasn't something simple. She knew that much at least.

"If that's your deal I'll have to go for neither." She replied harshly before ripping her arm out of her sister's grasp. Right away Serah latched onto her again so she didn't walk out the door like she'd been intending.

"If you don't tell me now, every day from now every time I see you I will bombard you with questions about what happened back then until you tell me what it was that happened. I know I'm not going to get it from him no matter how hard I try; six years of following him around did nothing in the end. And I can promise you if I tried for six years with him I'd go even longer for you." Serah yelled grumpily, she knew her face had turned into a pout, even when she was trying to force an angered expression, not one that'd look so childish. But the deal was Ari's idea, and though she remained herself her control wasn't complete. Not like her sister would noticed something being amiss, she was getting worked up; sometimes it really didn't matter who it was that annoyed her, though she did try most times to restrain when it came to Serah, her short temper was not something that could be denied.

Lightning looked into her sister's eyes deeply; she'd expected her to be annoyed but this was not the level she'd predicted. From her good nature it was easy to forget how stubborn she could get.

"And neither of the things you want me to say have anything to do with you!" Lightning barked, forcibly keeping her voice quiet, but the frustrated tone of her voice was hard to miss.

"Like you said, one doesn't even have anything to do with you, but you know anyway." Serah complained, "I know it has got to be the thing that's making you so angry lately, the others are ignoring but I won't okay? It can't just be Travis, I know you hate his guts and all but you two haven't gone anywhere near each other since that day you almost broke his nose again."

She paused and gave her sister a gap to speak, but she didn't and stayed mute.

_Maybe saying his name over and over would just make her mood worse? _ Arianna noted, whispering it to her in the back of her mind. She'd whisper a quiet 'shut up' but that was unwise halfway through a conversation. But it was true what she was saying, Ari was childish but not an idiot, just crazy. Really really crazy.

When Lightning didn't even attempt a reply, Serah added on more hoping that it could guilt trip her maybe, if all else failed, it was a good last resort.

"I care for you sis, just like you do for me. Bottling something up inside only makes things worse, you should let it out before it becomes too much." She was trying to sound concerned, sure she was, but not much. Ari's voice was too loud at this second to concentrate, now all she could think about was getting what she wanted and that was enough. It would be a plus if it could make her sister better, but if she was correct on what it was, she doubted it would.

Lightning removed herself from Serah's grip, the girl hadn't noticed how loosely she'd been holding her wrist, her mind had sunk into the conversation and she'd well near forgotten she had been trying to keep her sister on the spot.

Her older sister didn't look so ticked off at her any more. Serah didn't know what to say her mood was, she wasn't angry, she certainly wasn't happy, but saying she was sad didn't fit either. She sighed, knowing she was fighting a battle and losing, and she didn't want to lose.

"Do you really want to know what it is? What if it is something horrible?" Her tone was unlike her, but she was very protective of her dear little sister, of course she wouldn't want bad reaching her ears. She was so oblivious.

Serah nodded with confidence filling her. Her stomach was sinking, but from Lightning's perspective, it was impossible to tell. "I knew it had to be something bad, not just anything could get you like this after all you've gone through."

Lightning observed her; she was dead serious, her expression, her stance, proved that.

When she first opened her mouth, no words came out, it was clear she was forcing herself, but it was clear her sister would never give up until she got told it. It was something that could easily be told to her by someone else, it wasn't impossible. And with the situation like that, it was the preferred option out of what she'd given her. That didn't mean she wanted to say it.

"In the past year 11 people have been murdered. Squads have managed to come close to the culprit, but haven't been able to arrest her. The psycho's been evading capture for months, and the entire corps are no closer to catching her or finding out her identity."

If was halfway through the sentence that Arianna erupted into cackles.

_Psycho! Psycho! She called us a psycho!_ She was so overjoyed to hear the word, but Serah being at such opposites of the voice inside her head, had never felt worse.

Her eyes went wide, her hand went to her mouth, she couldn't breathe; she was ready to puke. Her head pounded given her a headache, caused by Arianna's high-pitched voice, overflowing with joy. Lightning with no doubt whatsoever, mistook it for shock. Of course, a sweet innocent girl like Serah would be sickened by hearing such a disgusting and vile thing. She was blind to the thought, that she could've done the very act with her own bare hands.

Serah was not revolted by the murders, but sick because it was all her fault that her sister had been in the sour mood in the first place. She had known she was right, but she hadn't wanted to be.

Lightning didn't say anything, she felt bad enough for telling her such a thing, so she walked out in silence without a further word.

Serah remained on the same spot for just over five minutes, standing near the door appearing as appalled as she had the moments the words had left her sister's lips.

_I'm so sorry, _she said to herself, for she would never gather up the courage to admit the truth.

_Don't be,_ Arianna chuckled,_ she's the one that fell for your lies._

She hated it, when Ari was right.

Her lies would haunt her forever, for what she'd done was irreversible.

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><p><em>Somewhere a ways off a bird chirped in a tree. It echoed around her as she trod along an isolated path. It made getting home more difficult, and it took far longer, but she preferred it if it meant not having to deal with anyone. The sun was low in the sky, hanging above the horizon line, dipping its head into the water, soon it would disappear and it would be the moon's turn. The blue was gone and replaced by fiery orange, dotted with lilac clouds. She'd taken her time coming home, not like she had anyone to spend her time with, or even had something to do. She'd been staring up at the sky, not because she found it pretty like most people, but for sheer boredom. She didn't want to go home, she found herself wanting to less and less every day. Her sister being there didn't help at all, it should've, but it didn't.<em>

_She adjusted the shoulder strap before her bag slipped off; when she did, she heard the unmistakable sound of crunching leaves. It sounded like someone running to be specific._

_Great, she thought sarcastically, someone's here to ruin my day. _

_"Claire!" A more than familiar voice called out in a huff, if the idiot got exhausted walking he was nothing more than a stupid moron for running around like he was right now. Of course it wasn't the first time he'd come up to her like this, he'd done it a million times over, so in the past year alone she'd changed her path seven times hoping each time she could lose him. It never worked._

_Claire stopped where she was, and fixed up her bag's strap so she could easily slip it off, she listened intently to the sound of his footsteps as they hit the ground and crushed the yellow leaves below. She timed it just right, aiming for his chest; she twisted on her heel and swung her bag around just as he reached her. It landed dead on and winded him, sending him off his feet and landing harshly on his back side._

_"Oi what was that for?" Travis complained, struggling for a single breath, his right hand clasping his heart, the other keeping him upright._

_"For being a stalker." Claire spat and continued walking the path, leaving him behind. But it wasn't long before he caught up again. His breathing troubled by that time but not as bad as it had been when she'd first hit him._

_"Can't you just talk to me for a little while; we used to be friends didn't we?"_

_"If you'd call it that, all it was was our parents forcing us together so they could do whatever they wanted to and wouldn't have to be bothered with us." She responded in a frustrated tone. Already she wanted him to leave her alone._

_"At least it was something," He sulked, "You don't have to be so mean. So how's life lately?" He tried the best he could to start-up a proper conversation._

_Claire stopped in her tracks and scowled. "Same as it was every day, and the day before that, and the day before that."_

_Travis winced at her pointing out the annoyance his questions served to be. "Well maybe I'd shut up if you'd say something for once."_

_Claire rolled her eyes, tired of his attempts, but she'd take the chance to see if it got her anywhere. "Fine, I don't want to go home and I don't want to go to school. I haven't talked to my sister in two weeks because I have no idea what to say, and she's been locked away in her room or not even in the house. But that's not anything because it's been that way for three years now." She spat bitterly. She holstered up bag back up onto her shoulder, and turned on him, "Oh and if you'd like to know also, if I get back after dark like I did last time my auntie is going to accuse me of hanging out somewhere smoking like she did last time. It makes it all the more worse that because of her we're going to lose the house because she doesn't have a freaking job and she won''t let us have one to help."_

_Travis frowned wretchedly as he watched her form disappear. Her auntie was considerably older than what her mother had been, despite being sisters. She'd always been sickly, and even he wished her sicknesses would end her from what little he had heard of her. She'd begun looking after the two sisters just three months after their parents had died, showing them little sympathy or any grievance for her deceased younger sister. She had lived a tough life, having three sons to three different men, all who'd tricked her into thinking they were MR right until they left her with child. Two of those three sons were dead, though one had only been a teenager and one in his early twenties at the time. She'd taken it hard and became overprotective of what little relatives she had left, her oldest son was terrified of her and she treated her nieces horribly. There's nothing wrong with being protective, but she did it in a bad way, she was a monster. If they didn't do something the way she wanted she'd scream at them, if they came home late she'd accuse them of doing something illegal. Just because her two younger sons had done it, she suspected her nieces, being blood relatives, would make the same mistakes._

_She was out of her mind, and neither could stand it. He felt sorry for them both, with his parents dead –they'd died only a couple of months after Claire and Serah's- his sister had become overprotective herself, but for him it was that he was being treated like he couldn't do anything. He had a condition, he was weak, that was a fact and she had every right to act as she was. But that auntie of theirs, was just plain crazy, he'd never say he understood, because he didn't. He'd made the mistake once before to say such a thing, like when he tried to get Claire to calm down when her parents had died. The first time he'd said he didn't understand, but on a second attempt he'd gotten angry and opposited his before mentioned thoughts. She'd hit him square in the face, and he'd never seen her so angry, he still hadn't. He'd ruined what little friendship they had between them, she'd deny its existence but once upon a time it had existed. And he didn't want to give up on it._

_"Claire!" He called, his voice not full of urgency like last time, he didn't feel the overwhelming need to talk with her. He just wanted to say something, letting her walk off in such a bad mood would eat him; he doubted he could fix anything right now, but he wanted to try, it was something._

_"What is it!?" She yelled, and was about to turn around to glare at him but got stopped when he hugged her from behind._

_"Ah Travis!" She questioned, suddenly embarrassed. She could feel the weight of his head on her shoulder, the warmth of his arms around her stomach was even more noticeable in the cold afternoon wind._

_"I'm sorry." He whispered into her ear before letting go. Like that he was off again, running back where he came. Even when he was plenty aware if he kept it up he'd collapse before he got anywhere near his house._

_Claire watched him until he disappeared, her face bright red in embarrassment. She knew Travis didn't care for personal space, but that was a first, usually he'd just grab her hand when she most wanted to be left alone. What was he sorry for? It couldn't just be putting her in a sour mood could it?_

_Disregarding it for now, she turned around and trod the rest of the path to her house, hoping she's make it back before dark._

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><p><strong><em>I would love to kill their auntie!<em>**

**_As you may notice there's a good number of difference as to what I've put in their pasts then what is known to be in there. They each have their own reasons of cause, like the existence of the crazy auntie, and why their parents died when Light was 11 not 15._**

**_I think the flashback would be only a couple days or weeks before Travis found out about Arianna, That makes C_****_laire 14 there right? My mind is all screwy. I need to write DATW! Crap! I have to go over the last Light chapter first! I don't know what to write on Light's side of the story, I don't with this one either but it's even worse with DATW!_**

**_If anyone at all is also reading DATW, please help me after I update it next._**

**_Review and I'll give you this puppy I stole from my friend, his name is Gilligan. _**

**_Jya mata ne,_**

**_~Serah Villiers Valentine_**


	12. It's not a name

**(2,627 words) I wrote this almost a month ago but my beta was having computer problems so I gave it to my old one a couple days ago. I don't really remember what I was thinking when I wrote this, all I know is I know what I'm doing with the flash backs, but not the present time. Please help I'm begging you or I'll have to put this on hiatus and I do not want to have to resort to that. I'm clueless, help me please!**

**Enjoy.**

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><p><strong>12) It's not a name.<strong>

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><p><em>"He lives in a mess of an apartment building in eastern Bodhum if that helps. The sign outside is massive, you ain't going to miss it," an ageing woman with long black hair informed a much younger girl with the same colour hair and bright jade eyes shining with mischievous joy. The woman handed the teen a small piece of paper, speaking like the most exciting and happiest thing in the world was happening right this minute. It was the opposite by far; on the paper was details of the location of a target the teen was meant to take out. She grinned and even giggled as she read it, receiving the bits and pieces she hadn't already been told.<em>

_"Sounds fun. I won't be too long; this guy looks like a piece of cake." Mel laughed as she waved and spun on her heels away from the chuckling middle-aged woman._

_Mel was no different to any of the other CRESCENT agents: young and psychotic. She'd practically been brainwashed by Crescent who was just the same as her, minus having youth. If you didn't go insane during the training or the first couple missions you still became warped no matter what. With a smile covering all her face Mel snuck up to a younger girl lazily fiddling with a set of miniature statues on the window sill. She wracked her shoulder to get her attention. Fully not expecting it the girl jumped and fell off the chair she'd dragged to the sill._

_"Mel! Why'd you do that?" she groaned while rubbing her sore back._

_Mel laughed. "Do you want to come with me? It's more fun that way. Besides, this dude's gonna be easy to finish off and it's going to take forever for the Corps to even realise he's missing," she asked happily, like she was inviting her friend to go watch a new movie, rather than inviting her to help her kill somebody._

_The girl continued to fiddle with the statues while mulling it over. "Nah, I'm going to go home. If I'm home after my sister she's going to be curious about what the hell I was doing. There is a chance that she knows I don't have friends."_

_Mel groaned in annoyance and wracked her shoulder again, this time to intentionally hurt her. "Come on Ariiii," She drawled as she tested the new name she'd recently given to herself._

_Arianna hopped up and flicked her companion in the forehead with a cheeky grin. "Nope. Besides, I'm only fourteen; I have plenty of time to have more fun." She giggled, everyone in the room knowing perfectly what she really meant by the word 'fun'._

_Mel rolled her eyes and returned the flick. "Fine, you crazy bitch, I'll have fun by myself."_

_Ignoring the insult, which she agreed with anyway, she waved to Mel as she exited the room. Arianna smiled to herself before heading home as she said she would. By this point, 'Serah' was all gone, she was 'Arianna' and that was that. Maybe she'd come back one day, but that day was certainly not today. She would only ever have to deal with being called Serah by her sister and the idiot, and occasionally by the teachers at her school because amazingly despite never studying she still managed to always stay at the top of her class._

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><p>Serah watched the sun slowly sink into the horizon; she sat on the steps of the house bored, like she had been the past couple of hours. When she wasn't teaching she truly had nothing else she could do, and she was more than a little sick of it. Having mind conversations with herself could only go so far to prolong complete and utter boredom. She didn't have any idea where anyone was either; she had a vague idea of where her sister was, and could take a guess for most of the NORA members, where Lebreau had gotten off to was beyond her since she knew she wasn't anywhere near Snow and the others. Though frankly she didn't want to talk to her, considering the ways she had been acting near her of late.<p>

_Ugh, not talking to her for even a moment_, Ari muttered in the back of her mind. She had to fight to keep her face blank; it wasn't every day they could agree on something. Even Arianna was starting to agree that Lebreau was better than Mel, but the woman had no intention to keep up the lie when it wasn't needed. She hated the fake persona she had created. She was slowly starting to become aware of her friend's disagreement, a fact she blamed on Snow completely and made her hate him more, a fact she would most likely never admit to.

_I don't think Snow even has that much influence on u_- Ari began to say but stopped herself when she remembered that the reason 'Serah' still existed was because she knew him. Though it was still true that Mel was wrong about why she no longer liked Mel as much; she hadn't known 'Lebreau' then, and when she did get to know her she found she liked her better, simple as that.

Serah decided to see if there was something she could pass the time away inside, otherwise she'd be out here waiting for hours either for a NORA member to finish what on earth they were doing or for her sister to come home, which would be a very long time.

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><p><em>The sun slowly sank beneath the horizon leaving the sky above a glorious flaming orange dotted with purple clouds. Arianna balanced on a stone wall acting as a railing, putting one foot in front of the other carefully. Walking home on these stones had become a habit for her years back. She sang the lyrics to a song she liked under her breath whilst she increased her pace; there was a part that was thick enough that she could run along it, and since she had learnt to keep perfect balance on this path she had always loved dashing along it.<em>

_Though besides the fun she had on this path there was another reason she loved taking this way home. Almost every day a certain depressed boy would come here to be by himself. This was a habit he'd started two years ago, and why on earth he'd kept it up after she began to purposely annoy the crap out him every day was a mystery, but it could easily enough be that he wanted to guilt trip her because of her secret habits. She spotted him half way to the end of the path, sitting with his back against the road. Giggling she jumped off the stone wall and ran the rest of the distance to him, a metre away she hopped back on and moved to his back, she leaned over and chuckled._

_"Traaviis?"_

_The brunette sighed and tilted his head upwards to see her grinning face. "What is it this time, Serah?"_

_She frowned in response to hearing him call her by name. "I told you: Arianna."_

_He sighed again and glared. "Stop being an idiot, I'm not going to call you that just because you told me to."_

_Arianna jumped off the wall and walked to his front, with her arms folded over her chest humming. "So let me guess you're still calling sis by her name too right?"_

_"Actually I'm not going anywhere near her," he revealed._

_"That's a first." She sniggered, pacing around in a circle._

_"She broke my nose, and then when it healed she did it again."_

_She stopped her pacing. "You're kidding, right?_

_"Don't I wish." He bit his lip and waited for her insult._

_"I mean seriously, don't you have some kind of condition? Man, your sister must want to kill sis by now."_

_"What's with you?" He asked with a venomous tone out of nowhere._

_Surprised she tilted her head and questioned, "What's with me? Being different? Is that it?"_

_Travis rolled his eyes and frowned, "Yes but that's not what I'm talking about here. You haven't called her Claire in a year, she's your sister surely you of all people would continue to call her by it even when she doesn't want to hear that name anymore"_

_The girl in front of him frowned and kneeled, distracting herself by picking up leaves and ripping them in two. "She'll be angry if I call her Claire, but it's not like I'm going to call her Lightning either. That's not even a name," she mumbled._

_Travis gave her a mean look. "You're just being stupid," he spat before picking himself off the ground, moving to leave. A second before he was out of reach Arianna grabbed onto his arm and asked in a quiet voice, "What happened between you two? Did you do something to make her like this?"_

_Travis deepened the look and she let go frightfully. He told her one last thing before walking off, his voice equally as angry as his last sentence, if not more. "Idiot, a lot of things have happened in the last couple of years, don't try to put the blame on me."_

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><p>Just as she had known, there was absolutely nothing to do inside either, so Serah laid down on the couch and had a quick rest. She wished that Snow and the others allowed her to help; then she'd actually have something to do, even if she would have trouble because she wasn't strong. Ari however was bored enough that she kept asking if she could kill someone just to pass the time, no urge no nothing, only because she was bored. A request Serah refused outright; it was only when the urges got too much to bear that she'd let her have her way, and this certainly wasn't such a time.<p>

"Hey, you alright there?" a chuckling voice sounded from across the room. Serah's eyes snapped open to see Snow walking in. Despite anything she should've answered, she instead chose to question, "What happened to your bandanna?" The second she noticed. Snow laughed and ran a hand through his messy blonde hair.

"Ah, Lebreau came over a couple hours ago and stole it," he shrugged, showing he had no idea what caused her to do it. "Would've gone after her to get it back but I was kinda busy. Have you seen her at all?"

Serah shook her head to say no and jumped up off the couch. "I haven't seen anyone today."

"You alright? Wasn't too boring was it?"

"Oh it wasn't that bad." A major understatement. "I'm fine now anyway."

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><p><em>Mel yawned and stretched on the dilapidated couch she rested on. The girl's apartment had been run-down for as long as Arianna could remember. Once upon a time she'd lived with Crescent, back when their relationship mimicked that of a mother's and daughter's, but soon she had tired of the cruel woman and chosen to live alone. Mel was a mean and spiteful type of person who saw people as objects for her own amusement. Even if they could kill her in a second they were not excluded; Crescent often got the blunt of this habit of hers. Arianna knew as well that the girl to her right viewed her in the same way, and she only kept her around for a little fun. But she was fine with it, because she was the closest she had to a friend. At least she got more attention than she did from her sister, who ignored her outright and if not only paid attention to her for long enough to tell her another thing she wasn't allowed to do.<em>

_Mel rubbed her sore shoulders and back before opening a can of beer. "Jeez I have no idea how you manage so easily, having to act so nice to a bunch of shitheads each day. It's exhausting!"_

_Ari fiddled with a pile of rubbish on Mel's coffee table absent-mindedly but gave enough of her attention to her companion to hear the start and end of the sentence. "I manage because I have a neglectful sister and no friends so the only people I talk to are teachers praising me for high grades." She half-heartedly grinned in Mel's direction before returning to poke the rubbish before her._

_"I hate your sister, and I hate that stupid freaking bar. Why does it have to be so busy all the time?" She groaned the last part to herself._

_She merited another giggle from the fourteen year old in front of her, "Okay the bar is understandable but why'd you have to say that part about my sister as well? Sure I'd love to slap some sense into her – literally – but I don't hate her."_

_Mel paused with that can half way to her lips. "You mean you don't hate her? I thought you did," she asked in disbelief._

_Arianna gave her a weird look and outwardly sighed. "She's neglectful, sure, but that's not enough reason to hate the last family member I have left."_

_"Yes it is," Mel cut in, nodding, before taking a swig._

_"Not for me. I suspect it's that idiot's fault. He did something and now she's gone all weird on me…"_

_"Can I kill him for you?"_

_"No." Ari stood up in shock, waving her hands back and forth. "If you do that I'm not going to be able to find out what it is, cause Sis is never gonna tell me!"_

_Mel went silent, took a swig of her beer, stayed silent, and then after a minute finally replied. "Damn, that sucks."_

_"Get off this subject now, please," she muttered angrily._

_So Mel smiled with a large amount of fake happiness planted on her face and changed the subject with the delightful sentence: "There's another guy I want to kill."_

_"Yeah, who?" Ari sat back down on the beat-up chair, finding this new topic rather interesting._

_"You know that group I was helping?"_

_"Yeah, I heard about that, not going to be able to go on as many missions now. Lot of CRESCENT people are pissed about it."_

_"Yeah, well." She threw the half empty bottle behind the couch, spilling its contents as it spun "Those dudes are unbelievably annoying, like one is stand-able but that's because you barely hear him speak cause that is all the others do. One won't shut up about clothes and don't even get me started about the other two." She groaned and put her head on her palm._

_"What's wrong with 'em?" Ari asked, chuckling._

_"Stupid hotheads is all they are, you'd want to hit them with a sledge hammer like I do, trust me. I've forgotten one of their names but he's, like, a not as bad copy so screw him I'll tell you about the other guy."_

_Ari nodded and she continued._

_"He is a retard trust me, always going on about being a hero and all that crap." She burst out laughing like it was the most bizarre thing ever. Ari smiled and let out a tiny giggle._

_"Hero? But if you saved someone then you'd have to hurt another. Even if you're somebody's hero you're always another's enemy." Ari rolled her eyes at the thought, truly believing the man had to be delusional. "So what's his name?" she added on._

_"Snow," Mel answered as her laughter died down._

_Arianna paused and hummed as she thought to herself, finally mumbling under her breath, "That's not a name either."_

_She left Mel staring as she tried to figure out what that was a continuation from._

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><p><strong>This is a buffer because if I don't put this here I'll feel like I'm rushing into things. With the flashbacks I know perfectly what I'm doing, but I need a bit of help with present time. <strong>

**I'd love some help, tell me in a review.**

**Reviews shall be much appreciated, **

**Jya ne**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	13. A pretty name

**(2,964 words) Okay this is shorter than I remember it being, but it gets done what I needed done for this to be easier for me to write. I still don't really know what I'm doing for the future part of the story but it may (hopefully) be easier to get done now...maybe.**

**It's fun when your big sister is your beta, she's really good to be honest and because we have a very similar sense of humour she keeps leaving all this random notes. Yes Claire you can steal the name Hart as much as you want. Se-chan's daddy in this story is called Hart, 'cause that's what I call nice guys in my stories. My sister had announced that she's going to steal it.**

**Please review you guys, it's been three of four chaps now and damn is that depressing. Be nice!**

**I like the flashack! I got to write it from a four year olds perspective! It's fun I tell you now.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><span>13) A pretty name<span>

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><p>"Whoa Lebreau you've got to hear this." A somewhat startled Gadot came rushing into the house. He and Snow had invited a few others over for some drinks last night and had trashed the place, it wouldn't have been that bad, but when Lightning had gotten home half of the men had hit on her so she'd punched each and every one of them in the face, which had sent them flying into a table. Lebreau had the job of cleaning it up, as the others were far too busy elsewhere because of another fiend attack two nights ago. She'd gotten Serah to assist her, seeing as she didn't have to teach today.<p>

"What is it?" Lebreau inquired curiously, dropping the damp handtowel she'd been drying dishes with. Gadot wasn't the type to easily act like this, clearly something had happened; whether she really liked him or not she had at least known him for long enough to tell that.

"Jeez, I barely believed it when I heard it. One of the guys helping us told me something he'd heard these two GC guys talking about last night-in hushed tones" He added, Lebreau figured he was repeated what he had heard word for word since those weren't words he usually used.

"So what is it? Get on with it." She grinned, not expecting it'd be anything bad coming from him.

"Man this is gonna sound freaky. Apparently it's spread all about the Guardian Corps, since the guys that were talking about it obviously weren't meant to know about it; well that's what I got told anyway. They said that there's some killer that-" Behind them Serah dropped a plate and it shattered on the floor at their feet.

Surprised, both Lebreau and Gadot looked over to her to see her nursing her finger as she picked up the broken shades of porcelain.

"Ah…I'm sorry," She mumbled, sounding startled herself. Gadot thought she was apologising for dropping the plate and accidentally cutting her finger, but Lebreau knew the real reason. "I'll go get a Band-Aid." She finished cleaning it up before rushing out of the room; Lebreau knew there was no cut on her finger, she'd seen it was perfectly fine; Gadot was just too far away to notice. The girl only wanted a reason to get out of the room so as to not hear a word of what he said next.

After a moment of awkward silence Gadot continued with his retelling of the information he'd been told earlier. "So ah…apparently the GC haven't been able to catch her-"

"Her?" Lebreau cut in faking her surprise.

"Yeah, said it was girl and that she's really young, like really young. It'd be amazing for her to even be Serah's age."

"Wow, that's pretty damn young for someone to be so warped. I'm mean they have to be if they're doing what they're doing." She acted like she knew nothing at all.

Gadot nodded and continued. "She's killed about 10 or 12, somewhere around there, the information wasn't so good on that detail. But they said that she only kills bad people. So we ourselves shouldn't have anything to worry about, but it's still a scary thought eh?"

The other nodded, her faked expression serious. "Some messed up vigilante or something eh?" She wanted to laugh so much it wasn't funny, and she was having trouble holding it back. She was extremely glad when Gadot quickly said before dashing out leaving her alone as she preferred,

"Hey I got to be heading back now 'kay. We'll see you later!"

"Yeah, later." She waved half-heartedly before running to the bathroom where Serah had gone to. She found her in a ball on the ground holding back tears.

"Man that was funny." She finally let out a laugh. "They'll never know will they? Even when the truth's right in front of their face!" She shook in excitement, getting giddy suddenly. The news was music to her ears, people knew about Ari now! A name didn't matter at least they knew!

"It's better that way." Serah muttered. It's was funny how all she could think of right now was: Arianna's an evil name.

She didn't want to hear any more about Ari's evil deeds, sadly, by the end of today it'd be the talk of the town.

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><p><em>An argument raged in the kitchen late at night. Serah had snuck out of her room soon after it started. She couldn't sleep through loud noises, unlike her sister always managed to, but she guessed that was because she was used to their mother having the TV up loud when she got home. The younger of the two was yet to get adjusted to it. She knelt at the top of the stairs, peeping through the wooden bars that stopped one from falling off the stairs, if she turned her head just a little she could get a good view of the kitchen's entrance. She could spot the front half of her mother, she was dressed in an expensive black dress her daughter had never seen before, it looked prettier than her creamy blonde hair which had been curled. Her and her sister got the colour of their hair and waves from their grandmother, their mother took after their grandfather, meaning she had shiny blonde hair. <em>

_She couldn't help but think her mother looked angry, her arms were crossed and her lips drawn into a thin line. In front of her in clear view of their onlooker, was another woman who Serah did not recognise, but spotted immediately the strong resemblance between the two. The only difference they had was that the other girl appeared to be younger with fuller cheeks and a lanky body type, not as curvy as the other. What really piqued her interest was that this stranger shared not only the beautiful waves she had, but had the very same shade of hot pink her grandmother had. It didn't take much to figure that in some way they were related, that was obvious even to her, and she wasn't even four yet._

_She listened in for a while trying to understand what the adults were saying, Serah became increasingly confused how the houses other occupants didn't hear this, but she put it out of her head so she could concentrate on the women's words. It had taken awhile, but soon the stranger proved correct her thoughts of their relation._

"_Luna!" She cried, calling Serah's mother by her first name as she had the whole conversation. The child thought it funny to hear, as she was used to it being 'mamma' not 'Luna'._

"_You can't go through with it!"_

"_Why? Who are you to say that?"_

_The stranger froze up at her words, and forced back tears that threatened to fall. "How dare you say that, I just don't want you to make mother's mistake." At the word 'mother' the stranger's tears quickly began to fall. It seems the word hurt her to say, why that was Serah couldn't understand. How could a mamma be sad?_

"_Mum did not make a mistake with me. It was my choice and I'm glad I made it, I should be free to make it myself if I want to. They're my daughters not yours anyway." Luna growled._

_The pink haired girl cried fresh tears, "Luna, do you honestly think that? Forcing a child to join CRESCENT? It was horrible for mother to do that to you. You only think her way because they've brainwashed you-"_

"_Oh Ari, They haven't done anything to me. As I already said: It. Was. My. Choice." She leaned forward menacingly and added a harsh undertone to her words, ending her sentence with a grin._

"_Don't call me that. I hate it." The girl snapped back._

_Luna chuckled and stood straight. "But it's your name darling."_

"_I don't want to be called by anything that witch called me." She muttered, just loud enough for their onlooker to make out._

"_You really hate mum that much? What a horrible daughter you are."_

"_And what a horrible mother you are. I wish you couldn't have kids, you don't deserve them, and you don't deserve Hart either. He's a good man, much better than a foul hag like you!"_

_Luna scowled at the insult, "How dare you! That man loves me; and I'm a better mother than you ever could be. Though it's not like you can have children anyway, what a shame." She rolled her eyes in the last sentence. She'd gone a step too far, but it was something funny for her._

"_You're a monster!" The other girl cried, and now that she was completely and utterly sick of this argument, Luna snapped back angrily, _

"_Get out of my house you bitch. You're garbage; no you're lower than that actually. You're just nothing, absolutely nothing. How dare you run off from us all for years then come back just to tell me how to raise MY children. Out! OUT!" She moved to slap the other but she dodged it at the last second. The pink haired girl stormed out of the room, heading for the exit. She wasn't going to get a single word though. But a soft, unexpected voice stopped her in her tracks._

"_Arianna, it's a nice name." Serah repeated the name she'd heard at the start of the conversation. It was so pretty._

_Arianna turned around and eyed the innocent toddler by the top of the steps, watching her curiously. She smiled grimly, "You won't think of it like that forever." And with that she strode to the door, and exited the house. From the kitchen Serah's mother yelled at her,_

"_Serah go to bed, your bedtime was hours ago." Luna cared not for a toddler overhearing all that, she would never admit it but Arianna was more correct than she could ever be about anything no matter how trivial._

_Serah nodded and climbed back up the stairs, going in the direction of her bedroom which she shared with her big sister. As she slipped under the covers she began to understand that conversation more. The two had spoken of a 'mum' a lot, but it must've been the same person, because that was how it had sounded to her. But that meant that this 'Arianna' was her aunty. Her mum did have a sister, but she was much older than her and had three sons all in their teens. Arianna was childless, as her mother had rudely pointed out during the argument. Plus her aunty was real mean and was blonde like her mother was, since when did she have another sister?  
><em>

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><p>Lightning had gotten off work early today. It would be the first time in weeks that she'd got home when the sun was still out. She was pretty glad for it, she really needed a rest. Work had been especially tiring lately, the work load had been piling in. Plus it didn't help that word of that freaking murderer had already spread throughout the corps, obviously someone on the case had been stupid and let word slip, now it'd spread like wild fire. She could only hope it didn't reach the ears of non-GC. She didn't want to hear anything about that girl, she was messed up, she just wanted the Corp to hurry up and catch her so this could end.<p>

Halfway home, she heard an odd whirling sound coming from the side of her, curiously she tilted her head to see what it was, and just as she did a stick flew by within an inch of her face.

"Damn I missed!" A sarcastic voice called out from the steps of a house. She scowled upon recognising it.

Lightning looked up to see a grinning Travis sitting on the doorsteps of what she presumed was his sister's house.

"Oh wow, I'm sorry you didn't hit me with a stick." She rolled her eyes in annoyance. That was only the first time he'd tried that, but it didn't stop it from being annoying.

"Why yes, I'm sad too." He chuckled, spinning a much smaller stick between his fingers. He had weird habits.

"You're a bigger oaf than Snow." She growled before going to walk off.

Initially he just laughed and said, "Wow, now that's an achievement." She knew he was just joking around since he barely knew the guy, but it was what he said next that made her halt.

"So you heard about that lovely little psychopath right?"

She stopped in her tracks and looked back at him, frowning, with her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I bet you have, since it's one of the GC's who let word slip."

"So the murderer then." She muttered, more to herself than him, but he replied anyway despite being full aware.

"The one and only." He said it with a laugh, far too jovial for such a subject. Her frown deepened, he noticed this and added more. "You know I've met someone who I think could be doing it."

Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "Eh? Why the hell haven't you said anything then!?" She yelled, agitated.

"Well," Travis used the stick he was holding as a pointer, "Think I need some proof first. Since this girl is actually the nicest person I've met-"

"You're a moron." She deduced he was speaking crap and just trying to stop her from leaving. It wouldn't be the first time.

"No I'm not. The girl's absolutely bloody crazy. To her killing someone would be like playing with someone."

"So you're sure this person has killed before?" She raised an eyebrow; from the way he explained it she did get the murderer's image pop up in her head, the 'playing' part oddly enough made perfect sense.

"Freaking hell Claire," Lightning death stared him, "I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't think that. I just need some proof and then right away I'll go tell the GC. If I just go and accuse her of it at least two people," He held up two fingers, "will be more than willing to kill me. Maybe literally."

She rolled her eyes at him as he made himself less believable again, for a person like that it didn't make sense that she'd have people willing to kill for her. "I don't believe that, you're being ridiculous." She spat in annoyance and began to walk off. But to further annoy her Travis stopped her by jumping right in front of her.

"Believe me Claire. I'm. Not. Kidding. This girl has people who care for her so deeply that she is their whole world, they've no idea what she is and she's too petrified to tell them otherwise. She didn't want to trick them but she's gone too far to back out now. She's not bad, just twisted."

"I still don't think that's possible." She shook off the hand he'd rested on her shoulder, but he grabbed it again.

"I'm seriously. It's no different to how you and Snow see Serah. That's how much they are being deceived." His tone was deadly serious; she'd hadn't heard him speak in it for years.

But Lightning still glared at him for the comparison he'd made, it may have gotten his point through but it put horrible images in her head. She deepened her glare when his expression went odd. She shouldn't have gone so silent, back when they were teenagers and she hadn't been victorious in getting him to stay away from her, he would always do something well…extra annoying when silence fell upon a failed attempt of a conversation. She doubted this would be different to those times. But being more prepared for it than she was back then she took a huge step back with every intention of leaving him alone, but instead he grabbed her wrist. Usually she could've easily shaken it off, but she was sure of her imminent escape from him she hadn't expected him to grab her again. He succeeded in pulling her back towards advantage of the split second when she was unsteady he pulled her closer and caught Lightning's lips with his. Her eyes went wide in shock, she tried to hit him with her left hand but being well prepared for it he dodged, but he wasn't quick enough to dodge the kick coming from the right. She kicked him right where it'd hurt most. Travis fell to the ground in a ball, groaning in pain.

"Ooooow."

"You deserved that." She spat

"I think I'm dying." He cried.

"Good."

Lightning stormed off and left him howling in pain on the sand, when she got back home she ran up the steps. Behind her she heard Gadot, who she had presumed was asleep on his place near the top of the steps.

"I saw that."

"Yeah well say anything and I'll rip your vocal cords out."

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><p><strong>Alice murders reference for the win! Don't ask, there's this unsolved murder case in Japan and the second guy that got murdered was a singer who had his vocal cords ripped out and was shot in the head and ditched in a bar his band commonly played at with his vocal cords and an ace of diamonds with 'Alice' written in his blood in his hand. I really like the second 's my favourite.<strong>

**I promised my sister I would hint at a certain something in this chapter, and I did, so now I fear the review I shall get from her.**

**I wrote this around two-three weeks ago to be honest, beta problems. That's why my big sister is now my beta.**

**Hope you enjoyed, please review, concrits welcomed, comments are discouraged.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	14. Hopelessly Clueless

**(9,807 words) God, I haven't updated this in so long, I'm sorry, I've been concentrating on REI, and just plainly not writing much. I hope this big chapter makes up for it (well, big for me at least).**

**Hope you enjoy, nya**

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><p><em><strong><span>14) Hopelessly clueless<span>**_

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><p>The following days after the rumour of the serial killer got out, it spread throughout the town like wildfire. Some were disturbed and disgusted; some were shocked; some thought it was a joke to scare people at night and laughed at it.<p>

All Serah knew was that it made her sick.

She wanted to get away from everyone, so she'd hear nothing, but no matter who she went near everybody was talking about it. Even when she was teaching the kids would be discussing it between themselves, some would ask her what she thought of it. She was beginning to have to repeat herself. She wanted to hear nothing of it. She didn't have to give a reason; lucky for her others shared that opinion, of course for far different reasons to her. People would go ahead and think the very thought of a serial killer must scare her terribly. People were still scared they'd be hurt by them even when the rumour included that she only killed bad people, like she was a messed up vigilante.

Only Ari killed bad people so her other half wouldn't feel as bad. Innocent people scream so much more, and because it was so pointless, taking their lives was always a lot more fun.

It was needless to say, that no one suspected her, and that was also a reason why she wanted all this talk of the killer to stop. It was stupid that no one had figured out something so obvious, if they hadn't caught her already, then they were looking in the wrong places. Who was to say it was someone who was an openly bad person? Why couldn't it be a good person who was lying to all those around her? She was sure that someone in the GC must have figured this out by now, but it had to be the minority, and they were unable to convince their fellow soldiers. Thinking into it, convincing them would be tough, not many people in New Bodhum had an appearance like Arianna, there was her of course, but no one in their right minds was going to suspect her. Her older sister was in the GC, and her fiancé had helped build New Bodhum. People were going to judge her by what people she knew, and sadly, that made it near impossible for her to become a suspect.

A breeze blew through the grass that surrounded her, bringing her back to reality. She'd been napping on a path of grass close to the beach. She should still be teaching by this time, but she had ended things early, all the kids had been going on about the killer. She'd tried to get them to stop since she couldn't take it anymore, but they wouldn't. Things would be fine for a minute or so each time she told them to keep quiet, but then they'd start up again. They would always start up again. So she told them things were over for today, and sent them away. If their parents complained, she would tell them the truth; that she didn't want to hear any of the killer crap anymore for it was making her sick, well, minus the crap part; she had no intention to be rude about it.

Sitting up, Serah inspected her surroundings; she decided to see if it'd help her tell her vaguely what time of day it was. She didn't see many people about; it was an especially hot day so most people would be inside. No houses needed fixing today; she knew Snow and the NORA members were back at home. Lightning would be working, as usual. Serah thought she worked too much, but Lightning herself probably didn't overly care, she was calmer at work rather than when she was not.

She spotted a group of kids playing by the water, she could tell that there was a kid down there that she did not recognise, or at least did not know well; it was hard to make out details at this distance. They certainly weren't one she taught, all the others were. She could only see two other people, two girls possibly a few years younger than her wetting their feet by the edge of the water. The people themselves gave her no hint of what time it would be, but when she looked up at the sky the position of the sun hinted somewhere past noon, possibly between two and three. She used to be better at telling the time using the sun, but it wasn't a skill she particularly needed, and thus had lost skill at it.

She yawned and stretched her arms, as she was stiff from lying on the ground for so long. She thought she had perhaps fallen asleep around noon or so. The others may be wondering where she was, though it wasn't uncommon for her to hang around the beach, it was calming, and she didn't have to talk to anyone. Serah hopped up and headed back, she'd get sunburned if she stayed here for much longer, she did have partial shade from an overhanging tree branch, but that wasn't good enough to stay perfectly fine.

As she started up the steps she heard Snow talking to someone, she didn't recognise the voice right off, but was definitely certain she'd heard it before. Still, it took her quite by surprise when she reached the top, and saw sitting opposite Snow at one of the tables, was Sazh.

"Eh?" Was the only sound she could form.

"Ah, Serah, long time no see." Sazh greeted her, "Just decided I'd come over for a visit." He smiled at her. She knew he lived a fair way away, so it wasn't exactly easy to come to visit, even when the way he sound it made it seem otherwise.

"Hn, long time no see." She smiled back, she still wasn't over her surprise, but she didn't have to show that. She was happy to see him, even if her main reason was that he'd have other things to talk about besides the blasted serial killer.

"Were you sleeping on the grass again?" Snow asked, she looked at him funny for coming to that conclusion so fast.

"And why do you ask?"

"Because there's grass in your hair." He admitted.

"Ah!" She exclaimed and searched through her hair to find it. When she did she pulled it out and tried to throw it outside, but having practically no weight, it got caught in what little wind there was by the door and went in the opposite direction. She frowned at it but didn't care too much; the wind would sweep it out eventually. Forgetting about it she took the remaining seat at the table which Sazh and Snow were sitting at and asked,

"So what have you been up to since we last saw you?" She knew she was probably interrupting them by doing this, but she was scared that their previous topic had been the one she'd been avoiding. It was just a feeling she had.

"Oh not much. Life's just been getting back to normal for us. Dajh has been attending school for a while now. I've managed to secure a decent job. It's a little hard over where we are, some people haven't been able to accept that they can't go back to Cocoon, and there are some settlements near ours that haven't been able to deal with Pulse. You have no idea how hard it is constantly being bugged about all the Pulsian things people manage to find where I'm at. They keep asking me, what is this and what is that, and honestly I haven't the slightest clue. They'll figure out eventually that my knowledge is practically identical to theirs. I'm hoping that time is soon. " He laughed it off, "I do think they'd be better off asking Hope, he's younger than me, he probably remembers it all a lot better than I do"

Serah gave a small laugh, "Yeah, he probably does."

Since the fall two years ago, Sazh, Dajh and Hope had stayed at the main settlement, where people had first started living on Pulse. They helped as much as they could, but as Sazh had already pointed out, there was little they could do as his and Hope's knowledge of Pulse was still very small. It'd been when other settlements begun that Serah, Lightning, Snow and NORA had left. It's been just over six months since the fall. This was the first time they'd gotten to see Sazh since then. He looked about the same as he had then; the two years had done nothing to him. Serah reckoned she looked older than she had, but being one of the youngest that wasn't surprising.

"So what have you been doing? This place seems to be thriving compared to a lot of the settlements I've seen. They were tiny places, the people are probably going to have to move to a larger settlement or they won't survive."

She would have replied, but Snow beat her to it. "I heard a couple stories about that happening. A small group that came around five months ago left the one they had been at because they were failing to get any food. The lady that was with them said her baby had died of starvation."

Serah remembered the lot he spoke about, she hated seeing that woman about, whenever she looked at the children she would have this faraway look, you could see on her face she'd be wondering 'if only', it was so sad.

_If only she hadn't been so reckless as to join a small settlement in a bad place. There was no way they'd even manage to secure food. It was idiocy on her part_. Ari pointed out, but Serah shut her up immediately, she didn't want to talk to her right now, she was sick of hearing of her deeds.

"No one here has been under threat of starvation yet," Snow begun, "There's plenty of food out here, and the cliff walls around the beach keep out most of the fiends. There's an open area near the end of New Bodhum, away from the beach. We've had to put guards around there to help stop them from getting through, some manage to, but nobody's been injured yet."

"A few have been injured back at the main settlement. But it's a much more open area so it's not surprising. You guys would only really be under threat if some big great monster crawled out of the sea." Sazh chuckled. It was a joke; he didn't expect something as insane as that to happen.

"So anyway, what've you guys been getting up to?" He'd already asked it, but they'd gotten a little off track.

"Me and NORA have just been helping out around the place. Helping build new houses and fixing ones that have broken. Nothing much really, Lightning has just gone business as usual, doing some GC stuff. Serah has been teaching, I reckon she's pretty good at it." Serah blushed as her name was mentioned, she hadn't expected to be pulled back into the conversation.

"Teaching eh?" Sazh raised an eyebrow and looked her way. "Hmm, I guess I could see you as a teacher."

"You're one of the first people to say that you know." Serah laughed; a quiet laugh. "It's funny; though I am just about the only person I know who went to their last year at high school. I know Snow stopped at year ten since there wasn't really a point to go the last two years, most people I met have said that. It's not like they're mandatory. Sis joined the Guardian Corps instead of finishing."

"Didn't you say she didn't finish year ten?" Snow asked off-handily, it wasn't something he was too curious about, just something that he had remembered now that they were on subject.

"Oh yeah." Serah mumbled, it was a fact that had skipped her mind.

"Hmm, what's this about?" Sazh questioned.

"Ah, about how Sis didn't finish year ten, well, actually she didn't go to it either. She stopped attending after year nine. After she turned sixteen she entered the guardian corps and that was that really."

Sazh stared at her for a moment with a quizzical expression, "Wouldn't there be a space of a couple months between the end of year nine and her turning sixteen? What was she doing in between?"

Serah paused and thought, "That's always been a concern of mine." She sighed outwardly, "I've tried to ask, but I'm yet to get an answer, I don't really expect one anymore." There was a short gap between speaking, before she realised they were waiting for her to say more, but she decided it was best to change the subject, they weren't going to get anywhere with the one they were on with such a lack of information.

"So uh, Sazh," She stuttered as she thought of what to say. "Did you bring Dajh with you?"

The man smiled, "Of course I did; I wouldn't leave him alone. There was a group of kids close to here a while ago, so he left to play with them. They were down by the shore last time I saw them."

"Oh, he was probably with the kids I saw earlier. I knew one of them wasn't someone from their group, but I'd been too far away to make out any details." She hadn't even notice the difference in skin tone. Though she doubted she would have realised who it was even if she had been able to, Dajh being the youngest would look the most different. He should be about eight now.

"They looked like they were having fun." Serah allowed herself a small smile, she said it mostly to herself, but if Sazh took it as if it was directed to him she didn't mind.

Again there was a small gap in the conversation. Serah didn't like gaps, they allowed her to start thinking about different things and she never liked doing that, it didn't help that she wasn't in a particularly good mood. She tried to think up something to say when the silence begun to bug her, she was annoyed when she couldn't think anything up but was happy when Snow ended the silence by asking Sazh a question.

"So why's Hope not with you? Why didn't he come too? He'd want to visit too wouldn't he?"

"Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. Bartholomew got into an accident. Nothing too bad, but he's in the hospital with a couple broken bones, so Hope didn't want to leave. I told him that he's worrying too much, but it didn't change his mind."

"That's too bad then." Serah remarked.

"He'll probably regret it later. It's not exactly easy to come out here is it?" Snow laughed, "Otherwise we would have seen you sooner."

Sazh nodded; a small grin present on his face. "Hmm." He looked like he was going to say more, so the other two didn't speak up. Serah decided she would say something when it appeared he was only thinking about something, possibly lost in the thought. But before any words could leave her mouth he spoke.

"You know, I heard a disturbing rumour while I was coming over here. I was wondering if either of you have heard it too."

Dread gathered in the pit of Serah's stomach, it didn't take an idiot to know what was coming, but she really didn't want to hear it. It took her all not to have an outside reaction, but she knew she still appeared concerned over the topic. When she looked over to Snow she knew he had come to the same conclusion she had. He'd heard about the killer.

"Two guys I walked past on my way here said something about a killer, a serial killer at that. Do you know anything about it?" He sounded troubled, no surprise really, it wasn't a nice thought.

Snow nodded. "Yeah, Gadot told me a little while back. Apparently there's a girl running about killing people, it started as a rumour among the GC, so it kinda makes me think that it's true. I don't know much about it, but they said she's only been killing bad people, like a messed up vigilante. She's supposedly very young too, twenty at most I got told. Gadot said she's killed about ten or twelve."

Serah looked down as he spoke, she already hated hearing it; it was even worse coming from him. He was the last person she wanted to know about it, and though it made Ari giggle, it made her sick. He sounded disgusted, like this girl was the worst person in existence. It was a harsh reminder to the fact that: she was insane.

She decided immediately that she needed to leave, before she made herself literally sick.

"God, twelve? Worse than I thought. That's horrible, any leads? There's got to be isn't there, this place isn't huge." Sazh looked horrified, to say the least.

"None, not many people here fit her appearance. And any that do don't make any sense, I heard some GC were going to interview a few girls who did fit, but their family's flipped out at the idea of a member of their family being a murderer and the GC got forced to quit."

Serah lifted up her hand to push her chair back, only to realise she was shaking, and not just a little. She bit her lip; she'd failed to keep it all inside.

"Serah? Why are you…?" She heard Snow say; when she looked up to him he looked very worried. She was confused for a moment but then guessed it was because of the shaking, but then she felt wetness on her face. She put a hand to her cheek and realised, she was crying. She hadn't even remotely noticed.

"Are you alright?" Snow asked; the same worry that had been on his face laced his words. Of course he'd be worried, he had no idea what was going around in her head, if he did, he wouldn't want to be anywhere near her.

"I'm sorry." She said, almost too quick to make out, before she pushed her chair back, stood up, and raced out the door, hoping he wouldn't follow.

Her tears stopped almost as soon as they'd started, but she knew you could tell that she'd been crying if you were too look at her. The shaking didn't stop no matter how hard she tried to calm herself. She felt so sick, like she was going to puke her guts out any moment. Only she knew she wouldn't. It was all in her head; it was unlikely she'd actually be sick. She didn't want to hear it, not a word, nothing. She hated Arianna; she wished she would just disappear. Every day since she was fifteen she'd wished that. It never happened; she was beginning to give up on it.

Serah's pace remained at a fast walk as she went across the beach. If Snow had followed her she wanted to put distance between them. If he had he would catch up eventually, if she didn't find a place to hide first. She didn't know where she could go though, beyond the dilapidated house past the edge of New Bodhum. She didn't want to talk to anyone, and no one risked going near there. But she feared Mel might be there, that was a problem. She had no idea where on earth she had gotten off to, no one did half the time. She had a good feeling that it was the run-down house she was heading too. Serah herself rarely ever dared to go there in the day time, lest someone see her. Mel didn't care whether someone did or not.

After a moment's thought, she decided to go there anyway, even if Mel did happen to be there, she would just ignore her. So she walked along to the edge of the beach, or at least the part with houses upon it. Only a percentage of the beach had houses dotted along its edge, beyond there the sand became incredibly bumpy, it'd be a stupid idea to build along it. There was a ramp that led up to a higher ground; it was a wide ramp, so many could cross at a time. No one passed her though as she crossed it. The area that the ramp was connected to was the main part of New Bodhum, where instead of the buildings being built like large houses, they were apartment buildings so as to fit more people. Most of the population lived here, though it wasn't as safe as the beach for it was more open. This was both the area where Ari had done all the killing, and the area where the GC was set up. Patrols on the beach were uncommon, and problems occurring there was also uncommon, so the only reason people ever saw the uniform in that part of New Bodhum was because two GC members happened to live there.

This took longer to get passed, for it was a larger area, but soon enough Serah found herself at the edge of town. Usually soldiers would be set up, making sure no fiend got in. But as fiends found ways to sneak in, she always found ways to sneak out. There were a few openings; they differed depending on the time of day. In the day time there was a marvellous opening that led straight to an area where hills dominated. They weren't large, but if you stuck close to the ground you could use them to get by completely undetected. The fact this area was not guarded during the day was insanely stupid, but it was probably the reason why Mel trusted going out in the day time so often.

After a quick look around just to make sure no one was around and could see her, she left the cover of the buildings and entered the hills, using them for new cover. Even when still inside New Bodhum she made sure to make as little people as possible spot her without looking suspicious. People knowing what direction she was going in was a hint after all. No one but Mel was allowed to know that she hid out in the building outside the edge of town. In the basement were the outfits and such she wore when she let Arianna out to play. It was evidence.

The walk to the building didn't take long but she was glad she reached it when she did; she really wanted to get inside. It was hot outside and she was about to drop. She opened the door slowly and took a look inside, she was quite happy to find it empty. She took a step in and closed the door behind her. Sighing, she sat with her back to the wall.

Peace and quiet. The wall was cold, it was refreshing. For a moment, she was calm, until she remembered why she came out here in the first place.

Avoiding talk of Ari. Of course no one knew it was her, and only a few members of the Guardian Corps knew of the name Arianna, and that wasn't even her real name. If they had enough information available, they'd be able to trace the name Arianna to CRESCENT. She was sure they would have heard about it. Only she knew what information they could possibly have on a CRESCENT agent name Arianna would be too old, the age wouldn't link up. Her mother Luna had used the name before her, she'd stolen it off the woman Serah had heard her arguing with years ago in the kitchen of her old house. She was sure the woman was her aunt, but she'd never admitted to it. She'd spoken with the woman a few times since then, but they mostly ended with an argument, or like once or twice, an attempt on the woman's life. She didn't care much for her own life Serah had found. She was depressed because she couldn't stop her sister from sinking deeper, and even more so because she couldn't stop Luna from bringing her daughter into the darkness with her.

She did like Serah better than Luna though, because she had at least done one good thing. When Luna had made Serah join CRESCENT, it wasn't only her that she wanted, she tried to make both her daughter's join. But though Serah didn't fully understand the situation, she knew that CRESCENT had something to do with the argument she'd heard in the kitchen, which at that point had only been a week or so before. She knew it was bad, but she and her sister couldn't get out of it. She'd begged her mother to make it only her, to leave her sister out of it. She had said that she would try twice as hard to make up for it. Luna had agreed, but only because her begging wouldn't stop. To be frank, she had never cared for Serah, not at all. She was weak; that was apparent even when she was little. Her big sister Claire showed the qualities that Luna desired. She was disappointed when she wasn't allowed to put them to use.

Serah felt sick when she thought about how much Lightning loved her parents, when their mother had felt love for neither of them. She'd seen them as tools, and was upset whenever she had to look at her older daughter. And it was because she had been a good person, because as a child she had been the nicest person ever. It was probably why their father had adored her so. Serah felt like he knew something was wrong with her, so he'd built a wall between them. He still loved her and she still adored him, even more than her sister did because of the negative way she viewed her mother. But there was a distance between them, one that couldn't be crossed. Claire had been both their parent's favourite. With their dad that was understandable, but Serah was hurt that it ran true for their mother as well. She spent so much effort trying to please her, while she was training to be a CRESCENT agent, she would always beat the other trainees. It was obvious early on that her mental capabilities surpassed the others, but it was also obvious that her physical prowess could not compare. That was her mother's problem with her, even if she could beat the others at tests of skill; it was only because she had spent hours until she was past exhaustion to manage it.

She had learnt hundreds of skills of survival, learnt human psychology and human anatomy near perfectly, learnt how to kill people in countless different ways, and most of all twisted her mind until she could no longer tell right from wrong. And it was all for her, for her mother, a woman who didn't even care. She was never happy with the results. It was all for nought.

Sometimes she was sad that she hadn't died more violently. It wasn't even Ari who thought that, she honestly thought that. She had gone through so much, for absolutely nothing. For a woman who after everything still favoured her sister even after all that. She hadn't done anything to please her; in fact what she'd done should've angered her. If she'd still been alive when Lightning had joined the Guardian Corps, she would have been vehemently against it.

Returning to reality, Serah shuffled down so she could lie down on the ground.

She was so sick of everything.

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><p><em>Letting the arrow fly, it landed on the edge of the yellow. Serah let a smile cross her face, in just over a week she had improved so much.<em>

_Her mother had made her join CRESCENT a few months back, initially they'd been teaching her strange things, well, she saw them as strange. All the adults seemed to think they were perfectly normal. She'd been told they were assigned by different sources to kill people. The adults dodged saying 'kill' most of the time, each had their own way of saying it. For some it was take down, for others it was get rid of, for her mother and the weird black haired woman that she followed all the time it was assassinate. She thought it was a cool sounding word, she hadn't heard it before until her mother had said it to her._

_After her and the other trainees had been taught some basic facts as to what CRESCENT does, the adults had decided to begin teaching them skills. For the last month she had been taught how to survive in difficult situations, in case she was ever trapped in one. They had also decided to improve her aim. This was for the ranged weapons she would eventually come to use as an agent. CRESCENT made use of guns, but didn't allow trainees to handle them early on. This was because their trainees tended to be small children most commonly aged between six and ten. Serah being only four was the smallest of all of them. The recoil of a gun would certainly hurl them back, so to teach them better aim without one, they would use a bow and arrows. Targets would be set up a fair distance away, and the better the trainee got the more different the target. The adults would give them targets of different shapes, and at differing distances. _

_It had only been a week since the current set of trainees had started with the arrows. Most could get on the yellow, or near it, each time. Serah was pleased with herself for being the third to hit yellow. The two who'd accomplished it before her were much bigger than her. One was a big scary boy, he was only six, but was the tallest out of the trainees. The other was a black haired girl named Melissa, she was seven. Supposedly she was Crescent's daughter, but she was sure that was only a rumour. They shared the same colour hair, but the physical difference was too great beyond that. Serah thought that she was very interesting, instead of being raised in a seemingly normal household like her and the others, she was being raised in a sanctum facility. This unfortunately meant that she wasn't allowed as much training time, but even so she surpassed everybody else. Serah, at that time, had liked her, she wanted to go up and talk to her, but she seemed so scary because she always had this dead serious look in her eyes._

_After glancing over at her, she fitted another arrow onto the bow, aimed, and let it go. It was closer to the centre than before, but still not good enough. So far she'd only hit bullseye twice. She needed to hit it close to all the time; otherwise she couldn't take a step up._

_She was about to load another arrow when she heard the unmistakable clacking of high heels hitting the ground, and it was getting closer. Curious, she turned around to see her mother standing behind her, observing the other trainees abilities to shoot. _

"_Mamma!" Serah smiled broadly, let the bow drop to the ground and ran up to her, hugging her legs happily._

"_Oi!" Her mother looked down at her, frustrated. "Serah! What did I tell you? Keep your attention on what matters, why'd you stop?" She sounded angry, so her daughter shrunk away a bit. _

"_But I haven't you seen in heaps long." She sobbed. For the past week the parent of another trainee had been driving her here during the morning when her father was at work. She hadn't seen her mother once._

"_And? Concentrate, don't get distracted!" She shook her leg free of Serah's grasp, knocking her to the ground. "Go; let me see how you're doing."_

_Serah took a second to get over the pain of hitting the ground as hard as she did, then nodded and excitedly ran over to her bow and picked it up. She could show her how much she'd improved; it was a chance to impress her. She really wanted that, maybe then she'd stop being so mean to her._

_She fitted the arrow to the bow, aimed once more, and let it fly. It hit on the edge of the yellow._

"_The bow's hard to hold, but I'm getting used to it," She grinned, "See, I can hit the yellow now!" She pointed to it cheerfully._

_Her mother nodded, her lips pursed. "Hmm, I see that. But you still need to improve. Yes, you hit the yellow, but can you hit the centre?" She was using a serious voice, Serah didn't like hearing it, but at least she wasn't being mean._

"_Well, I have hit it."_

"_Try to hit it now, in front of me." Her mother ordered. Serah nodded and tried just that._

_She had been trying to get a bullseye this whole time, but she was scared to disappoint her. She loaded another arrow, took extra care with the aiming, and let go. To her surprise, it hit dead centre. _

_A broad grin took over her features and she gasped, "I did it, I did it!"_

_Again, her mother's response was a small nod. "Hmm, yes. Tell me when you can hit bullseye with every go. Then that's an accomplishment, don't get so excited over something so little. It's stupid. Oh and-" She kneeled down to be level. "You're taking too long to aim, especially with the last go. Try to cut it in half at least. At this rate if you had a moving target they'd get you before you even had a chance to get them. You don't need to put so much time into it, look where you want the arrow to go, and it will go there, got it?"_

"_Yes Mamma!" _

"_Good." With that, she stood up and left her alone to practice some more._

* * *

><p>Serah yawned and stretched her arms. She couldn't even remember falling asleep.<p>

"That makes twice today." She said to herself, before rolling her shoulders and picking herself off the ground.

She opened the door a mite, finding it was afternoon, close to sunset. _I should be getting back_, she thought to herself before opening the door fully and stepping out. She took the same path back to New Bodhum as she'd taken out. She was glad no one saw her, not that she was surprised, it was difficult enough to spot someone making their way through these hills, it was even more so when it was getting darker.

When she got inside its borders, she walked close to the edge of the town, where she could overlook the water. She made sure not to reach here right after getting back in, as it was an open area and people would wonder what she was doing on the opposite side of town to where her house was for no reason. Not as many people were out at this time, so she had no reason to worry now that she was a good way in. The waters were calm, and the golden afternoon sun reflected off the waves beautifully. She wished she could dive in, but didn't as it would be difficult getting back to shore. The reason this part of town was not on the beach also, but because the sand made for a steep descent that was painfully difficult to get up.

In no time at all she was back at the ramp that led to the inhabited section of the beach. She walked down slowly and continued walking downwards until the water lapped at her feet. She sat down and allowed herself time to think. The atmosphere was so calming that she had almost forgotten why she had left in the first place. Because Snow and Sazh had begun to talk about Arianna in front of her, completely clueless. She had had quite the reaction to it, and knew it was unavoidable that she had to explain it. She supposed she could go ahead and say that she didn't want to hear about the killer anymore. Hopefully they'd buy it, though she was scared that Snow wouldn't. He knew her pretty well after all; he'd have better luck telling if something was off. Sazh hadn't seen enough of her to know when she was lying and when she wasn't.

Serah frowned and sighed, it was better to get it over and done with rather than putting it off. She stood up she turned to the right to get going, but just as she took the first step, a child ran into her. She jumped from the sudden occurrence but kept her footing fine. She lowered her head to look at them as she apologised, or for them to apologise it didn't really matter, and found it was the last person she'd expected it to be.

"Dajh?"

The little boy shook his head and rubbed the part of his face that had collided with her stomach.

"Ah, you!" He smiled happily. He was a bit taller, and his face was just a little bit less round, but it was still undeniable him.

"It's Serah, remember?" She giggled. She liked being around kids, the innocence about them made her calm. Sometimes she'd be so calm she'd forget Ari even existed, even though both her and the kid she would be talking to were immature.

"I know. Why would I forget?" He smiled again, and stepped out of her way. "I'm sorry; I wasn't looking where I was going. The boy over there dared me to run across without looking." He pointed to a small blonde boy in the distance

Serah peered over to where he was pointing, "That's quite the way away. And you didn't open your eyes once?"

"Well," He drawled, "I did once accidentally since I was starting to run in the water and I didn't want to fall in. But I closed them right after I swear!"

"I believe you." Serah smiled. "So you've been having fun?"

"Yeah!" Dajh grinned broadly. "There are a lot of kids back at the main settle…settlement, but no one's my age. They're either a baby or older, so no one wants to play." Serah giggled as he tripped over the word settlement but frowned when he said he was lonely.

"Aw, that's not nice. You'll find someone eventually, I know you will." She looked back over to the blonde boy Dajh had pointed to before. He was calling out and waving his hands.

"Oh look, I think he's calling you over. Maybe you should head back." She pointed over to the boy she was referring to, Dajh followed her finger and nodded in agreement.

"Hn."

"I'm going to head home, so I'll see you later then?"

"Yeah, we can talk lots too!" Dajh grinned, before running back over to the boy he'd been playing with.

She watched him until he reached the boy then went on her way. She really liked being around Dajh, it wasn't really anything about him being adorable and all that, she genuinely liked talking with him. He was nice, very kind and polite. It was something that made her like Sazh in turn, because he clearly was raising his son right. They had a bond that she could have only dreamed of having with either of her parents.

She was glad that she was fairly close to Dajh. He'd been the first person she'd seen after coming out of the crystal. In that moment she had felt so much hope, she had been convinced that all was lost when she'd become a L'cie, to find out that hope was still there, had been an amazing feeling. The first thing she could remember clearly was Dajh being there, happy, because he could see his daddy again. Immediately she started to talk about the people she would get to see again. It'd made her so happy, all the bad things she felt had been washed away, in that moment they did not exist at all. She cherished that conversation. Initially when Ari had started to get her way again and she'd begun to feel depressed over it, she had used that conversation to calm herself down. Sadly, it wasn't working as well as it once had. She hoped that speaking more with Dajh would make the memory fresher. If so, then possibly she could escape to it and ignore Arianna.

She hoped things could work out that way.

* * *

><p>"<em>Pretty good." A jovial voice appeared from behind her; Mel came from behind and rested her arm atop Ari's head. <em>

_She referred to the shots the girl had just fired. One was dead centre, and the others circled it a small distance away._

"_I've gotten them all closer before, except I wanted to see if I could make them form a circle. Last time I tried it was more like a rectangle, not so close either." She spoke of it so lightly as if it were a game._

"_Yeah I think I saw that." The older girl chuckled, and took her arm away. Her tone made it seem like she thought it was impressive, but Ari knew that was not so, for Mel had the ability to do just the same. She was better with guns; the recoil still flung Ari back every now and then._

_They'd first been allowed to use guns back when she was seven. Even back then her head had been filled with different skills and much knowledge. CRESCENT poured it in daily. She'd been considered a proper agent back when she was ten, she was twelve at current time, Mel was fifteen. _

_Her mother had died four years back, when she was eight. Since then because there wasn't someone she was continuously trying her hardest to please, she had found pleasure in training. It was fun when she shot the target dead centre. It was amusing when the knives sliced up everything they touched, and it was funny when she used her knowledge of psychology to make someone flip out. When she thought about it, she could barely understand how she hadn't found it fun in the first place, tiny little her surpassed all the other trainees, the older agents had even called her a prodigy. It was hilarious when the people outside of CRESCENT acted like she was a weakling who could do nothing for herself, when she could kill them five times over without them even noticing. _

_After becoming a proper CRESCENT agent she had chosen to call herself Arianna. It was the same name her mother had used, but she quite liked it, and with that vile woman no longer around, what was the problem? All agents called themselves by a second name around base and a lot of the time, around the others during everyday life. The name commonly represented their true self, whoever knew it was someone they could honestly act like themselves around. Some agents forgot what other agents real names actually were, even if they were best friends. They became like the person's real name. Already people were forgetting that her name was really Serah. They all agreed that Serah was too sweet a name for a little demon such as herself. But she was still young and adorable, so they'd started up calling her Ari, it was a cute name, one they reckoned suited her better._

"_You leaving after this?" Mel questioned, after the other girl had let off a few more shots._

"_Yeah. Sis will worry if I don't. I doubt it, but I keep feeling like if she keeps getting worried she'll get suspicious. It's really stupid a thought, since she thinks I'm a complete angel."_

_Mel burst into a fit of laughter, "You, CRESCENT's prodigy; an angel? Crap man, you must be a good actor."_

"_All I have to do is act like I did back when I was four, but make myself seem more intelligent, but be careful not to act as intelligent as I really am. Simple, right? You have to act happy, which you already are, but otherwise act completely different to what you are, while hanging out with people you hate. There's a reason it's easier for me." She explained as she moved away from the firing range, she was returning the gun to a storage room that was to the left. All the long range equipment and a few of the short range weapons were stored in here._

"_Yeah, I guess that's right." Mel mumbled to herself. "Hey wasn't your aunty looking after you, what happened again? I think I got told but forgot."_

_Arianna looked back at her like she was mad, "I've told you multiple times already, and so did Crescent. She died three months back. The police told me that she had been going home from work and was shot, it was an accident. A stray bullet from a fight, but then Crescent came up to me and asked me about it, so I think it was actually a stray bullet by an agent having bad luck taking down their target._

"_Ooh yeah." Mel grinned. "Well serves her right. She was a total bitch wasn't she?"_

"_Yes," Ari answered as they begun the walk to the exit. "And she kept blaming Sis for everything. I mean she didn't really help by coming home at three in the morning on multiple occasions, but that's irrelevant. She'd still go off at her when she didn't even do anything. I ended up getting annoyed at her for doing it, so I stole her fifty dollars off her bedside table and spent it on candy. I made sure each piece was a dollar so I'd have fifty pieces. Then I ate it in the lounge room with it all spread out on the coffee table for her to see. Dumb thing was; she knew I didn't have any money and yet she didn't suspect me. When Sis came home she went off at her for the missing fifty. Even when Sis saw the sweets she didn't even have to think and knew I'd stolen it."_

"_Looks like you proved she was an idiot then?" Mel chuckled, rolling her eyes._

"_Those were Sis' words exactly. She didn't even care that I'd gotten her in trouble. Though personally I think she was too drained to care, she collapsed on the couch next to me and joined in. She didn't say anything; I thought she was sick though, she looked it."_

"_Explanation?"_

"_Don't have one, I think I'll ask the idiot next time she acts funny. He always seems to know the strangest stuff." _

"_Seems a good idea as any." _

"_It's the best I've got; she isn't going to tell me, past experience has shown me that." She waved to Mel as she exited the room, with the intention of heading for the exit. "I'll seeya."_

"_Yeah, seeya." Mel waved back, though Ari could no longer see it._

* * *

><p>Serah reached the house soon after her conversation with Dajh. She dodged a napping Gadot, who was resting on the steps in front of the house. She looked ahead of her to see that Snow and Sazh were still taking, Sazh remained where he had been but Snow was standing, he'd gotten up to get something was the best thing She could come up with.<p>

She leaned over to Gadot. "They're still talking?" She made herself sound like she was in disbelief, but really she was just stalling. She still didn't want to talk to them, even though she'd left to calm down, she'd been plagued with thoughts of Arianna and CRESCENT all day.

"Yeah, though Snow went to go look for you awhile back, he only got back pretty recently. Good hider aren't you?" He chuckled.

"I guess." There was no way she'd admit that she'd been hiding outside of New Bodhum, everyone would flip out. "You know you shouldn't sleep there, you'll kill your back."

"Yeah, probably, I've done it before though. Oh last time I did I saw something fun." He grinned, recalling it.

"Hmm, what was it?" She didn't really care, but if it helped her to stall she'd listen.

"Closer, she'll get pissy if either of those two hear."

So Serah kneeled next to him and listened to what he whispered.

"I'm not sure what was going on, I think that weird guy was talking to Lightning, that's how it started at least."

"Weird guy? Do you mean Travis." She wouldn't be any bit surprised if Gadot had forgotten his name; he had no reason to even remember the guy existed. Serah's only reason was to get off him what happened to her sister back when they were teenagers. She knew he knew something that she didn't.

"The brunette who keeps juggling random crap?"

"That's him. So what happened?"

Gadot chuckled, "He got hit afterwards and all I'll admit, I'm not sure what the crap was going through his head for him to even try, but he kissed her."

"And?" Serah tilted her head in wonder.

Gadot sent her a look.

"I know that he likes her at least. It's obvious after you speak with him for a bit. I think it's why he's so stubborn about calling her by her actual name."

"Huh." Gadot raised an eyebrow, "Didn't expect that reaction."

"If you're used to something, it's not really anything anymore." She didn't quite believe in her words, only minor things were like that, when they're serious, it never changes. Bad things are still bad things years later, and they'll still make you sad. But this at least she was used to, the fact sat comfortably in a corner of her mind causing her no problems at all. Sometimes she'd forget that it was not common knowledge to everyone.

She half expected him to say more, so she stayed kneeling. It got to the point where she was beginning to think he'd speak no more when he opened his mouth and said,

"Don't you have something to say to those to? You had quite a reaction earlier I was told." That was something she didn't want to hear. She did have to face them eventually.

"Yeah." Enough stalling.

Serah stood up and walked up the remaining steps, knowing she'd have to face answering for her actions earlier in the day. Sazh noticed her first, as she walked in, as he was facing her direction. He continued his conversation with Snow but his eyes made a path that ended at her. Snow followed it and turned around, finding her standing nervously a few metres away by the door.

"Serah! Where have you been, I was searching for heaps long." He said as he crossed the distance between them.

She bit her lip and looked down, uneasily. "Sorry, I was just walking around I guess." Her voice was shaky; the others would probably pick up on the fact that she was reluctant to explain her earlier actions. "Around the main part mostly. I only came back down to the beach a little while ago. I was talking to Dajh before, but then he went off to play again." She didn't lift her face up but she glanced up with her eyes to see Snow's expression. She wasn't sure what he was feeling about her running off like she had. He wasn't annoyed, that much she could tell, he was more upset then anything. He must've of ben concerned when he couldn't find her anywhere.

"Jeez, you had me worried before. I couldn't find you anywhere, and everybody I asked had no idea either. It was like you'd disappeared into thin air." He sighed, he did look pretty exhausted.

"Except I haven't any idea how to do that." It was Ari that made her word it like that, so to make her sound less ridiculous she added, "And plus I'm pretty sure it's completely and utterly impossible."

There was a short pause, so she looked up to see his expression again, to see if it would hint what was happening next. She could tell he was going to ask her about earlier next, it was written all over his face.

"What was that, you were shaking, and crying too, why'd you react like that?" Snow asked, he sounded deeply concerned. And she could find no reason to blame him, after all he cared for her very much, and she'd just had a break down and then disappeared. At the start he must have felt a mix of emotions, but now they'd formed into just one: worry.

Behind him she could see Sazh had a similar expression, only confusion remained to be present with him.

Serah lowered her head again, and in a quiet barely there voice she answered. "I don't know." She had never intended to react that way, she had intended to stay silent, grit her teeth and wait for it to end. Only she hadn't been able to manage. The shaking she could understand, but she was still confused about the crying. Maybe she was convinced that they hated her, they hated the side of her that was Arianna, unbeknownst to them. But she was scared they hated her too, the side of her that was 'Serah', and no matter how much thought she put into it, she couldn't understand why.

"I just…I didn't want to listen." She begun, thinking up what to as she said it. "I just didn't want to listen to anything about the killer." She was sick of hearing of Ari's deeds, because that made her a bad person too, and she didn't want to be a bad person, not any more. That was something she had decided when she was fifteen, and was yet to succeed.

"It makes me sick listening to people speak about her." Because she is her. "It makes me sick, it makes me uneasy." She swallowed a lump forming in her throat. "Hearing everybody talk about that rumour frightens me." Because she was scared that people were going to find out that she was Arianna; that she'd eventually crack under the pressure and admit to everything.

When she looked back up to Snow, tears were falling from her eyes again. He looked worried, as he had the entire time. But he didn't say any words of comfort; instead he pulled her into a hug and held her tight.

She frowned, and shut her eyes. That was right, he had no idea what was going around in her head; he couldn't hear what she'd left unspoken. To anyone listening, it must've sounded like she was petrified of the murderer, that she was scared she or someone close to her was going to get killed by them. But she didn't fear that at all, because she knew that could never possibly happen. She was scared of hurting those she cared about yes, but in no physical way. If they found out who she truly was, they'd be disgusted wouldn't they? They'd be hurt because she'd tricked them into thinking she was a little angel who deserved the world.

She had never intended for things to end up the way they did, the people around her had made up all these ideas about her, and she'd become terrified to go against them. She had never wanted her sister to protect her, she had never wanted the man in front of her to fall so hopelessly in love with her, when he deserved so much better than a lunatic like her.

She could never become a suspect, because everyone that knew her was so helplessly clueless as to whom she really was.

Serah wrapped her arms tightly around Snow. She was scared out of her mind right now, but she didn't want him to let go. She didn't want his warmth to leave her; it was the only thing stopping her from having a complete nervous breakdown. She could hear him whispering 'it's alright, it's alright' against her ear, she smiled grimly and hugged him tighter. He was so hopeless clueless, everyone was so hopelessly clueless.

It was not alright. It never had been, and it was never going to be, as long as she was around.

* * *

><p><strong>Nya, done. <strong>

**Snow makes me sad in this story, he's so clueless. If I was in Serah's place, I would have completely lost it by now. I wouldn't be able to look him in the face I'd feel so terrible.**

**Hopefully, if I can get myself to write them, there will be two important flashbacks next chapter. I think the main problem I'll find is that they may make it a big chapter and make myself go restless. I can't sit down and do the one thing for hours, no matter how awesome it is.**

**Reviews shall be much appreciated, I'm still going through one of those moments where I'm not getting many. It's weird to have one after a DATW update...DL one's also. They're my most popular stories on here.**

**Just asking, since the reviews I get about this are fun, but what do you all think Happened to Lightning when she was a teenager? I've been asked if it was scientific experiments before, so far, that's my favourite one. So if you can spare a minute to send a review (or PM) I'd really like to know what you think.**

**Jya ne,**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


	15. Love is blind

**(9,091 words) I apologise for getting this out so late. I finished it a few weeks ago but my beta was busy and had a few things stacked up, so she couldn't get to editing it. It also didn't help, that after the hour and a half of editing this, apparently my internet was temporarily disconnected and so when I tried to save, it didn't save and all my work was undone. So today I've gone through it all again. I'm not sure if I've done as good a job since I was so incredibly frustrated about going back over it, but it's still decent. I hope I didn't miss any mistakes.**

**Oh, and in the flash back, though I'm calling her by 'Serah', I'd say it's more correct to view her as 'Arianna'. The scene is from before the personalities split, so that's why it felt right calling her by her actual name.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

><p><em><span><strong>15) Love is blind<strong>_

* * *

><p>Serah tiptoed down the front steps, stopping abruptly at the bottom, and handed the cold drink she was holding to the boy on the bottom step.<p>

"Here." She said as she kneeled down so he could grasp it.

Dajh smiled at her and accepted it. Afterwards he took a moment looking at it oddly, as if deducing its contents.

"It's juice." She informed him as she sat beside him. "Taste likes apple juice, but the fruit it's from looks more like oranges.

Dajh nodded and took a sip, he seemed to like the taste because he drank some more right after. "Daddy found one that looked like grapes, but they tasted like oranges."

Serah giggled at the fact, "Pulse is a weird place." There'd come across a fair few fruits and what not that looked just like one back on Cocoon, but not one has tasted the same. It was something very simple, but surprisingly difficult to get used to.

They didn't speak as the kid drank up the beverage, so with nothing better to do the older woman sat silently next to him, enjoying the sunset. It was late afternoon, and it'd been another day where Serah had been left with absolutely nothing to do. It would have sent her up the wall, had Dajh not been with her. She'd been talking with him near non-stop ever since he'd gotten here. The only times she hadn't been talking with him was when he'd been playing with the other kids, or she'd been teaching. She felt it fair to give him the opportunity to let him hang out with kids his age, since she'd learnt from him the day him and his dad had come to visit that he had no friends back where they were living.

They'd been in New Bodhum for a week now, and planned to stay a few more days. She really didn't want them to leave, because though he hadn't been trying, Dajh had done the one thing that no one else had been able, he'd calmed her down. It was a plus that the others had stopped talking about Arianna, at least, when they thought she wasn't around, as she'd caught them once or twice. But the kid was so innocent and kind, he didn't know any of the going-ons around the village, for no one had told him them, not even the kids he was hanging out with. So she was able to talk about completely different subjects, and could let Ari completely out of her mind.

She was scared what would happen when Dajh and Sazh left, without someone to keep her sane, she doubted that even with the less mentioning's of her crueller self, that she'd be able to reign herself in forever.

* * *

><p>The following day, after finishing all she had to do for the day, Serah was fixing herself a snack out of the remaining slices of bread she had found, when she heard someone sneak up on her from behind. Though she could have easily dodged it, she resisted the urge knowing it might seem weird of her to enact the perfectly fluid movement she was sure to make if she attempted. It was as she took the first bite of the sandwich that a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her, and a voice higher than the one she'd been expecting chuckled from behind her.<p>

"All alone I see?" Lebreau questioned as she released her.

"As per usual. When I have work to do, it never last as long as theirs." She replied calmly and took another bite. Lebreau had probably expected her to flip out when she got grabbed, for she didn't always consider how easy it was for her to notice another's presence the moment they entered the room. She didn't seem to realise that 'Serah' and 'Ari' had the same set of skills, as no matter how you looked at it, they were still the same person, no matter how different in personality.

"Fair enough." The black-haired woman responded as she stretched her arms with a sigh, before collapsing on the nearby couch. "I didn't know the oaf was doing anything today though."

Serah ignored the other's wordings, near her, she didn't censor what came out of her mouth, of course it was the same both ways, but whatever Lebreau could say would be far worse than what she would. Serah at least held no ill will towards those she knew.

"He's not; him and Sazh are just walking around. They'll be back soon I'd say. No one wants to be out during night-time anymore. I've even heard that some GC people are refusing to work at night now." The pinkette finished her snack before sitting down on a chair close to Lebreau. She didn't want to talk loudly in case anyone overheard. So it was best to sit next to her, and not across the room where she would need to raise her voice.

"Ah yeah." She grinned, "Ari's just fun isn't she? But they'd be fine wouldn't they? You don't strike me as having any plans to do anything to them anytime soon."

"Or ever, to be more precise." Serah corrected her. "They're nice people, and Ari had no problem with them either."

"Man, you're no fun." Lebreau joke pouted before immediately switching to a smile. She rolled over and leaned close to Serah.

"So, have any plans for tonight?" She raised an eyebrow, coming from her, what she meant by this didn't need to be questioned. Questions from her almost always referred to Arianna.

"Talking, if anyone actually comes around. That's about it." She answered, avoiding talk of the other half.

Lebreau sniggered and sat up, leaning in closer once again. "Aww, you know what I meant by that Ari." She grinned cheekily. Scowling, Serah stood up and walked away.

She knew what she was trying to do, she was trying to get her to switch. Serah bored her, so she wanted to talk To Ari. She of course had no interest in doing that, for it never ended well. So she was being as stubborn as she could to keep herself under control.

She heard the woman behind her sigh as if exhausted, though she knew it was more for that she was pretty annoyed by being ignored. Serah exited the building and sat on the steps outside. The sun was dipping into the horizon turning everything it touched a fiery orange gold. Observing it sink behind the horizon line was a better idea than speaking with Lebreau all alone. The woman was yet to fully catch on that she didn't like her anymore.

"So you're not doing anything?"

"I thought it was obvious." Serah muttered, unsure if she was annoyed or hurt. She didn't understand why she felt that way; she thought maybe it was that other people knew about her now, that made her so unstable.

Turning her gaze to the woman on the couch, she saw that she was staring up at the roof, with an expression of indifference planted there.

"You're being strange you know?"

"No I'm not." Serah disagreed, with a tone that reminded her of a child having a tantrum.

This made Lebreau laugh loudly, as it was a tone she expected from the other side of the girl. Being hopeful, she took it as that her words were working. They weren't however, so she didn't recognize that the younger girl was merely sick of being around her, sick of someone not understanding her at all, no matter what she got told.

"I think you are." She persisted.

"I'm upset probably." She admitted, "That's not strange. It's to be expected." Serah grumbled. She began to toy with strands of her hair, as if doing so would allow her to ignore everything else. It was a futile effort.

The younger girl heard sounds that signalled the couch was no longer being occupied, and the follow-up sound of footsteps only proved this further. Lebreau stopped on the same step as her, but did not sit down. She instead leaned over, with her hands on her knees for balance. She was inspecting her face, looking for signs of the truth.

"Why would you be upset, how's that to be expected?" The tone revealed it all. The sentence hadn't made sense to her at all, the one who should've made the best sense out of it out of everyone; for she was the only one who had all the details.

Serah's bright blue eyes snapped out to hers, stunned. "How…eh? How could I not!?" She questioned, confounded. Speaking in a raised voice. "Never has there been such a risk of everyone finding out about Arianna!" Though her tone remained the same, confused and wounded, she managed to get it under control by then, and had spoken the sentence in a hiss.

The result was a raised eyebrow and a quizzical expression. "So? That's funny isn't it? It's their fault for trusting in you."

"No, it's my fault for allowing them. I tricked them into doing so. And now things have come to this, they'll find out I'm a monster. It'll destroy them." It took all her strength not to scream out and cry, because that was what she wanted to do. She was on the verge of a break down. Each try of calming down always ended like this, and it was always worse the calmer she'd gotten herself to go. It was in her very personality to be so unsteady, though she refused to accept this.

"But that's really their fault; no matter what you did they shouldn't have suspected such a suspicious person in the first place. So that's why, it's just plain hilarious." As she finished, she smiled, like it was something one should be happy about.

Serah glared at her, it was all she could think to do. "No, it's not." She muttered fiercely before jumping up off the step and storming off.

Just before she was completely out of earshot, she heard Lebreau exhale sadly, "No, you really are acting strange." She spoke no more, and re-entered the house. Serah watched her disappear before leaving the beach behind her.

The sun was soon to sink into the horizon; the golden glow that had enveloped the area so completely was already so close to disappearing.

* * *

><p>Serah headed through town without any real destination in mind, it wasn't as if she'd been thinking when she'd left anyway. All she'd known was that she wanted to be gone. That was all that'd been able to pass through her head.<p>

The sun was gone; her surroundings had turned to darkness. Not many people still hanged about, it was even less than usual. She felt no need to question this, it was her fault. People were scared that they'd be killed if they stayed outside too long. This was a ridiculous fear needless to say, since it was an important part of the rumour that the killer only killed bad people. But humans were ridiculous at the worst of times. It wasn't surprising they'd still be scared.

As she wandered, they few people she strode past all talked of the same thing. She wasn't sure if she should even be surprised, people at the beach had immediately stopped mentioning it in her presence since news of her little break down had spread around fast. It was inevitable that there would still be plenty of people in New Bodhum who had not heard. These people she passed had nothing to do with her at all. She'd never seen them before; it was bound to be the same way around.

As she past them, they all seemed to be talking about different facets of the murderer and her apparent habits. Some of these must have been made up, for she'd never heard of them before. And she was the one who should know everything about the murderer, considering she was her other half. Some people said she'd killed fifty people, and that the Guardian Corps were just trying to keep people calm by keeping the number down. That the hit count would swell was no surprise. Even serious rumours just became a game of Whispers, it'd grow and alter little by little until it didn't even resemble of original story anymore. Someone said that the murderer was actually a guy, and that they just looked feminine. Apparently this was a ploy to frame someone else. This she could understand as well, for it was a very smart idea. It was unfortunate she couldn't pretend to be a guy; she was too small and slender to even have a go. From other's she got told that apparently she was a myth by the GC to scare people, there was even one duo speculating that she was a cannibal. That was where the logic stopped, and she really begun to feel sick.

At some point, she had begun to mutter inanely to herself. She could not say when she'd started, for she'd been too far out of her head to even surmise an answer. She was sick in the stomach, but having half switched to Ari, she found herself giggling at all the apparent prospects. One or two she'd heard she could agree with, but most of the citizens were so hilariously incorrect in their crazed assumptions. Not a single person had mentioned about her only killing criminals.

No one seemed to care either way. And why was it important? She was a monster. How could she not be? When being covered in someone else's blood gave her such intense pleasure?

"Aah," She sighed, unsure who she was now. She believed she'd turned to Ari, but everything was still clear in her mind. She had become the vessel of a peculiar in-between ground. "I really should just give in and give them what they want? Shouldn't I?" She giggled, meaning to strike against what everyone seemed to believe she would. Someone who'd done nothing bad, a poor innocent victim who'd wouldn't harm a fly.

Arianna had been forbidden from doing so, because even though her other half could never stop her from playing games with others, she could restrain her. But it'd been ever so long since she'd played with someone who didn't know the rules. And it was always so much more fun when she got to play with someone like that. The citizens had given her an excuse to play an especially fun game tonight, a good enough excuse that she could override her own sense of guilt.

Without ever having intended to, she found herself walking over to the abandoned house, with a skip in her step.

* * *

><p>Being Ari, she was so distracted by her thoughts that she couldn't even begin to guess the time it'd taken to reach the hut. She never gave much attention to what she didn't care about, even if it was something as simple as the passage of time.<p>

She turned on a little light in the basement, the light it gave off was dull and yellowish, but it would suffice.

She showered and scrubbed obsessively before getting out. She donned a deep blue V neck and a black jacket covered in a needless amount of pockets. She scavenged a pair of denim shorts from a pile and black leather belt to go with it. To keep her legs well and covered she pulled on a pair of grey thigh high socks and knee-high combat boots.

Then she made sure make herself look as different as could be, but kept it well in her taste. Serah and Ari did not share a fashion sense, something which sent Ari mad for the only time she could wear things she liked was in moments like this. Which were quite unfortunately very few. She put on a pair of contacts the colour of her shirt, which though still blue like her real eyes, they still differed greatly with the shade. She surveyed through the little wig collection that had been gathered over time. Most of the stash her and Mel had gathered for use as disguises, had been easy to acquired, the wigs however were a completely different story. But without them none of this could have happened. She eyed the one she had used before last, a pretty light blue one streaked with darker shades and green, but decided against wearing it at the last second. She wanted to play with something innocent, so using something she'd used before, and which was coloured oddly also, was certainly not a good way to go about it. Eventually after a long while of thought she picked out a brown one. It was a little shorter than her natural hair, and as wavy as it. But it was a nice shade of brown, which couldn't get more normal if it tried.

After she put it on she added a pair of light grey gloves, careful not to touch the outside. As a final touch she hid a pretty knife inside an inside pocket of her jacket, positioning it in such a way that it could not be seen, or its shape noticed.

Finished, she left the building behind, to find her target for the night.

* * *

><p>She could have been wandering around for hours, but she was in a cheery mood, so the time passing her by was the least of her concerns. She strolled around New Bodhum, careful to dodge the eyes of patrolling GC. A young girl walking around at night that matched the killer's description was suspicious indeed. She spotted a handful of people still hanging about, mostly bad people who were up to no good. They were few, but they existed here. Some had hidden after the rumour really started to spread, but some were overly confident and continued as per normal. The criminals were the only people around, and as she'd already promised herself, they were not her target for the night.<p>

She continued to wander, in hopes to find a suitable candidate, but anyone who looked fine always disappeared from view almost immediately, and thus they were useless to her. Just as she eyed a normal looking man a way off, and was about to run over to him, a pair of hands grabbed her from behind and swept her of her feet. She went to scream something at the person who'd done it, but no sound made it out of her throat. For a moment, she panicked, fearing she'd run out of luck and was about to be attacked, but then she got a good look at the perpetrator.

He was a tall man, with brown hair that was closer to black, tied up in a high pony tail. His brown eyes were inquisitive, without the slightest bit of murderous intent. She must have stared at him wide-eyed for a full minute before he let her go. Right away she took a few steps away, eyeing him with suspicion. He however, did not look at her any differently at all.

He made a humming sound before asking like it was a perfectly normal situation. "Do I know you?"

She raised an eyebrow, having someone say that to her tonight was the thing she'd expected the least, having someone come up to her in that fashion made her think they'd at least bash her.

"I wouldn't know." She answered truthfully. She'd met a lot of people before, some as Ari and some as Serah, and they tended not to remember very well the people the other personality met. Arianna had talked with too many guys when she was younger to make a distinction out of them. Though if she was being truthful, at that point in her life, she wouldn't have cared in the least.

"Hmm, No I think I've definitely seen you somewhere." He continued, "I'm not sure if it was recently, or a long time ago though. I've gone completely blank." He grinned at himself. "Really stupid isn't it?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah." This person didn't strike her as the best kind of guy, though he showed her no ill intent, he was suspicious looking certainly. He was probably a part of some type of gang and just didn't see a good reason in assaulting her tonight. This pointed to any possible time for them to have met as a long time ago, when Ari socialised more. He wasn't someone 'Serah' would talk to.

"Were you that kid?" He asked, in his tone it sounded like a light bulb had gone off in his head.

"Kid?" He couldn't have worded it vaguer if he had tried. She'd already assumed she'd met him as a kid, so he was on the right track, but it was still not enough detail for her to remember either.

"The…the kid." He nodded and folded his arms with an air that made her think that he thought he'd cleared it all up perfectly.

"Okay then." She nodded, "you're boring, so I'm going to leave now." She sighed and turned on her heel.

Only for him to grab her again. She turned, intending to glare at him. It wasn't that she was angry, impatient sure, but she was relatively calm even so. She was half way to that point when he spoke.

"When I was younger, I was in this group; we used to hold these fights and all that. And there was kid there, this girl. I think she was twelve or something, she had black hair with green streaks, but I think that was a wig because I remember her telling me no one that knew her really knew her, and I think the reason was really deep too. But are you that kid?"

She had to force down a laugh as he spoke. He had a really childish way of speaking, she wondered if he'd noticed that or not. She couldn't help but recognise that it sounded familiar to her. Back before 'Serah' existed she had run around a lot with different groups, and yes one of them held fights, which had been extremely fun to watch, especially when one of the participants were smashed into the ground and blood went everywhere. The colour of the wig was familiar as well; it even shared the same colouration as the wig she wore last time she killed a person.

She was just about to give him a reply when someone else appeared.

"Hey, what are you doing?" A concerned voice rang out as a small man ran up to them.

The eyes of the other two went to his deeply worried ones curiously, before they realised that the position they were in did have a problem with it. Who wouldn't be worried if they found some shady looking man holding a young woman who's clearly not alright with it?

Without allowing another second to pass the man let go of Ari, who dashed to the side of the other man who'd just arrived at the scene.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, he didn't do anything thanks to you." She tried to make herself sound extra polite, to get on his god side. And the easiest thing she could think of was to create distrust of the other. "But I'm lost, and I don't know my way back home at all."

The man nodded, fretful. "Well, I can take you back to mine for the night, Perhaps it'll be easier to get home when it's light." He decided, before sending a glare to the poor man who'd been turned into a victim.

"Oh yes, thank you. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come!" She smiled brightly, deciding as well to cling to the man's arm for added effect.

They began to walk off, but were halted by one last word from the man they were leaving behind them.

"Oi, pinky!" He cupped his hands around his mouth as he called.

Arianna's eyes snapped to his. In less than a second she'd returned to Serah, shocked by his words. 'Pinky'? There wasn't any pink on her, not even in the slightest, and none of the colours she actually wore could be mistaken for it in darkness. So that meant only one thing.

He knew exactly who she was.

Upon receiving her fearful stare, he grinned cheekily and asked. "What's your name?"

She swallowed over a lump in her throat, "It's Savina." Goddess was she glad the man whose arm she clung to could not see her expression, and she did not want him to until she got far away from here, and calmed down enough to change back into Ari and allow her to complete what she intended to do, knowing she didn't have the choice to get out of it this late in the game.

"Nice name, mine's Senji. Don't forget it next time, Savi." He replied before turning heel and disappearing from view.

"Who was that?" The remaining man asked her, worried deeply about the 'don't forget it next time' part, which implied the girl had met him before, and perhaps would again.

"I haven't the slightest idea." She lied, and let them continue of their way.

* * *

><p>It was clear as they walked to the man's apartment, with Ari clinging to his arm like a lost child, that he didn't have the slightest idea she had ulterior motives. He asked her a few questions, like where exactly she lived and how old she was. She lied and said she wasn't sure of the exact area, because she didn't go outside much, she also claimed she was 17, sure she was three years older than that, but she could still pass for it. He needn't ask her name as she'd already given it earlier, to the other man they'd been speaking with. She didn't doubt she'd met Senji somewhere before, but she couldn't be at all bothered to remember where. Savina was a name she'd used a lot as a teenager, so she went with that, knowing he'd recognise it.<p>

The man she was talking to now said that his name was Jame. Apparently his wife had died in the purge, but his children were alive and living in other settlements at current time. So he had an apartment to himself. This was something that made her very happy, because it was the perfect conditions to kill him, plus he was a very likeable man, the perfect example of an innocent civilian.

They reached their destination soon enough, since he hadn't been very far off when he'd found her. He'd been visiting a friend for the day and they'd lost track of time completely and utterly, but he didn't want to impose on them so he left to go home. Perhaps it really would have been better if he'd just stayed, that way he would've actual survived the night. Not that Ari cared; everything was set up for a very fun game.

The apartment was bigger than she'd expected, for she'd been expecting a crappy little box. The lounge room was a fair size, with a couple of couch chairs set up in a semi-circle. She could see the kitchen in the corner, and more doors which she supposed led to the bathroom and bedroom. For a bit she wondered how he had afforded it, considering he didn't look very rich, but after a moment's thought, she realised it was very tacky looking. Plus, if she had recognised the surrounding area like she thought she did, this apartment block was close to the outskirts. Prices always went down then. There wasn't as much protection.

"Do you want something to drink?" Jame asked, as he caught her gaze while she'd been observing the room.

"No, I'm fine." She replied without much thought, she was still inspecting her surroundings.

"Well, you should probably go to sleep. You must be tired." He elected, using an almost fatherly tone of voice.

She nodded and made a sound in her throat that showed she agreed, but she didn't move from her spot near the door.

He gave her an odd grin before sitting down on the closest couch. "Then you can stay awake for a bit. You're young, but you're not a child."

The moment she's heard the couch's springs, her eyes had pounced on his. He was in a suitable position.

She moved to the couch's back, and picked up the belt she had spotted on the floor from her observations. He wasn't looking at her, so of course he had no idea what she was doing. There was no way for him to tell she had ill intent. She noticed he was about to turn around to see what she was doing just as she stood up, belt in hand, so she acted as quick as she could. She held it at the ends and flung it over his head and pulled back fiercely, gagging him. He tried to scream, but he couldn't with the obstruction in the way. Before he had time to think she took hold of both his arms and placed them behind his back, before tying them up with the belts remaining length. This resulted in his arms being in an incredibly painful position where they were lifted up near his head, but still had them rendered useless at his back.

Happy with her work, Arianna skipped to his front, as she took out the knife she'd stuffed in her jacket pocket. She heard a few muffled screams come from Jame, before he forced out.

"What are you doing?"

Curious as to how the words came out so clear, she sent him a look, seeing that he'd worked his tongue over the gag and had pushed it down so that it only half covered his mouth, so that it could only quieten him, not shut him up. She frowned; she hadn't tied it tight enough. Now he'd make sounds.

"What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?" She rolled her eyes, referring to his question.

"Wha? You…you're not?" He stumbled over his words as the truth begun to set in.

"Yes, I'm going to kill you. Simple isn't it?" She smiled cheerfully, as she begun to ponder what to do first.

"But, I thought you. I thought…" He shook his head; it was too much to take in so suddenly.

"You thought I was some useless child who can't do anything for herself, and could be eternally trusted no matter what situation they happened to be in?" She raised an eyebrow, believing herself to be completely correct. "Well if it makes you feel any better, that's what everybody else who knows me thinks. It's really quite annoying. I can't help but think if only I wasn't so nice." She shrugged. "Ah, but what can you do?"

Jame eyed her like she was a mad woman, of course, that was what she was.

"Too nice?" He laughed shakily, "You're insane! I offered you help and you're going to kill me for it!"

"I know I'm insane." Ari replied casually.

"How can others think you're too nice? Surely they must now there's something wrong with you!?"

She smiled with an evil glint in her eye. "I know I'm insane. But people don't usually know that."

"How!?" He questioned frantically.

"Same way you didn't notice. But they have more working against them. I really should teach you a lesson about that."

Not allowing him a second to react, she reached around and tightened the belt, so now the gag would work properly, and she wouldn't be hearing a further word out of him. She unsheathed her knife and placed the cover close by on the couch. She leaned down so she was level with his shoulders, his watched her, fear and worry clearly present from his shaking and mumbled pleas. She lightly dug the knife into his arm and wrote along it, before repeating the procedure with the other arm. She made sure the cuts looked as alike as possible. She liked the effect they had.

When her artwork was finished, she stepped back and admired her work. Written eloquently on his arms were the words 'Love is blind'. The man couldn't see correctly what she'd done, and could only cry over the pain as his blood trickled out from the cuts on his arms.

"I think they look much better that way? Don't you?" She giggled before dashing out of sight. "Just a sec, there's something I want to do and I don't have the right tools for the job!"

She could hear as she started her search Jame begin to hyper-ventilate. She hoped he didn't faint, because then she'd have to wait for him to regain consciousness. And it was preferable that she didn't stay here long. She needed to go home.

When she found her required tool, she rushed back and held it up for him to see. Immediately confusion over wrote the fear on his face for a split second, when it registered that his soon to be killer was waving a table-spoon in his face. She thought he must have gone scared again because he was theorising what she was going to do with it. It wasn't that bad she thought, not scary at all. Just really fun. She'd done it a few times before, to see if she could. Those times had all worked besides the first, so she was confident in her abilities.

She giggled like a child in a candy store, before she kneeled once again and got started on a new work. He made a muffled gasp as it neared his left eye, and he realised exactly what she was going to do. Instinctively he shut both eyes, so she groaned like a kid who'd just lost against a boss in a video game.

"Oh come on, don't make this so difficult for me! I mean really!?" She used two fingers on her free hand to pry her target's left eye open, so she could continue the task. She dug the spoon into the bottom of the socket, and slipped it under the eye, not a second later Jame started to scream his head off. Ari giggled as the sounds came out muffled and quieted. She liked the sound of the useless struggle he was making. She slid the spoon deeper into the socket, then lifted it a little, in an attempt to get behind the eye. To be honest it was probably easier with an ice-cream scoop, but she hadn't seen one, so she had to use second best. As she begun to pull the eye-ball out, the screams got louder, still they were stifled through the gag, but the difference was clear. After some work she managed to rip the eye away from the optic nerve without badly damaging the eye-ball.

She giggled and showcased it to him, "Look, how cute is it!? It's so tiny." She held it up in front of her deep blue eyes, "I've always wanted to lick one because my mind keeps saying they taste like candy, but I know they're not, plus they're all gooey, so I've never done it."

Blood poured out of the empty socket, a sight which did not deter her at all.

"Now for the other one why don't we?" She cheered.

She repeated the procedure of digging the spoon under the eye and deep into the socket, before softly working with it to sever the optic nerve without turning the eye into goo. Like before, she was successful in snapping it without damaging the ball. She grinned at her success, holding the brown and white orbs in her hand.

"Look, there done! Oh wait; you can't see anything now can you? I need to stop forgetting that." She sighed.

Jame had stopped screaming on account his voice was too hoarse to keep going. She didn't know whether she should be happy or sad. Since he couldn't make any noise now, people wouldn't be alerted to her presence, but she couldn't enjoy his beautiful muffled screams anymore. Perhaps it was good enough that he was crying from the numbing pain.

The blood from his arms had more or less stopped, but his sockets were pouring fresh blood all over the front of him.

"Okay, enough playing. Time for the finale!" She agreed, picking up her knife again and discarding her gory spoon.

She worked it deep into his neck like it was a saw, completely severing the head. The man was probably dead halfway through, not that she noticed, she'd been singing a catchy little song to herself for fun. She held up the severed head in front of her, thinking up what else she could do with it, before coming to a conclusion. She held it in front of the body, so that the blood dripped on him. She started with the neck, cutting into the skin gently so that the skull was left perfectly fine. She worked her way around until she'd sheared the skin and hair off of his head. She was left with an ugly bloody bag of skin and hair in one hand and a skull in another.

Without much thought she shoved the hideous dead bag into the cadaver's neck, and placed the skull in his lap. She rested his hands on top of it, making sure her writing was easy to make out from the front. She discarded his eyes on the floor, so if anyone walked in they were likely to squish them. She fiddled with the body so that the pose was neat and polite. When she was done, the headless corpse looked like a right gentlemen.

She stepped back to admire her work, holding her arms out in front of her with her hands making a square, like she was taking an imaginary picture.

"There, beautiful!" No sooner had the words left her lips, then did she fall to the floor.

She hadn't felt it coming, not in the slightest. But in that spit second she had completely switched back to Serah, in time to see her disturbing masterpiece.

"Yes, I am insane." She chuckled shakily, as tears rolled down her face. "So very insane. And no one will ever know." She shut her eyes and let herself cry.

After an unknown time doing so, she slowly opened them, and gazed at her disgusting piece of art. She got up onto her feet and strode forward, before dipping her hand into the dripping blood from his neck. With her gloved hand covered in red, she went to the wall, and smeared it across it in the form of letters. She repeated the process again and again, in a twisted trance she could not stop. The movements became robotic, she didn't think, she didn't see, she just did it. If she'd blinked at all she wouldn't know, if she'd cried or laughed, she'd know even less.

When she returned to the middle of the room, her task complete, she observed all she'd done. The walls were painted red, as with the floor. Everyplace she could reach, giant red letters formed into the sentence, 'Love is blind'. Because it was, it made people blind to even the most noticeable detail. It blinded them to anything and everything. And that was why she would never become a suspect, and it killed her on the inside.

* * *

><p><em>Serah was walking along a random path she'd picked to head along for the day. Days without missions from CRESCENT tended to be boring; it wasn't like she had any friends. It wasn't smart to hang out with others from the group either. Mel was working and she didn't know where there was anyone to bug, so she'd deciding wandering around was a good choice. She'd find someone eventually she hoped.<em>

_She'd headed right through the shopping district, which at this time of years was packed full of tourists. She had no money, and considering the overcrowding there really wasn't any reason to stick around. She passed by the beach, which was just as crowded. Full of young families. She didn't like them, since she never had one so happy and lucky like the ones playing on the sand and swimming among the waves. She ended up in a residential district soon after and decided then to head back home and laze on the couch. No one would be there to greet her she knew, since all she had was a single sibling who she rarely saw anyway._

_She was in luck when she went back along the path which skirted the beach however, finding Mel leaning against a wall of a small take away shop that was always a favourite for lunch on weekends from all who lived nearby. She wasn't eating though; she was merely taking a break. Excited, Serah snuck up quickly, appearing at her side in a few seconds time._

_"Well hello there!"_

_Mel didn't jump, she rarely did. She simply let her eyes sweep over the girl._

_"Ah, Ari, what you doing around here?" She sounded surprisingly exhausted. She didn't look it even remotely. Just a little hot because of the heat and that was all. But so was everybody else._

_"Walking I guess. I've got nothing to do. I'm bored out of my mind." She shrugged. It'd been the best option she'd had._

_Mel nodded and pushed herself off the wall so that she faced Serah. "Hey, at least it's not as bad as what I've got, even if it's something to do."_

_"Anything's better than nothing. I probably would have gone crazy if I stuck in the house any longer." She decided. Mel complained a lot, but she had it better off in many situations._

_"Hell no, do you know about the guys I have to deal with all day!? They're idiots; I'd rather chop their heads off!" She hissed through clenched teeth. Serah held no doubt that she would have screamed it had she not done so._

_"But everyone's like that aren't they? Isn't that just normal?" Serah tilted her head, confused. She did find others weird. But 'weird' to her was just 'normal' in the end. She had a basic grasp of that._

_"Times it by a thousand, then you'll understand "Mel sighed._

_The younger girl shook her head, "Nope, still think that's normal." She laughed when she was given an exasperated look._

_"Really? You're kidding me ri-"_

_"Oi! Lebreau!" A voice called out from behind them somewhere in the crowd._

_Mel jumped and spun around, shocked and disappointed. Serah realised at this point that she hadn't been simply taking a break; she'd been hiding as well. The younger girl leaned over to see past the older one._

_She spotted a man not far in the distance. His hands cupped his mouth still from when he'd called. Going off the name he'd used, she knew that this had to be one of the people Mel had referred to earlier. None of them knew her as' Mel', only as 'Lebreau', the name she used in her everyday life._

_She couldn't make out any details of the man, as he was too far away. But the annoyance in her friend was easy to see. Her face was in a grimace and her whole body was tensed up. She muttered a string of curses before the man begun to head in their direction. Immediately Mel relaxed and stood up straight, and with much force warped her face so that it showed a cheeky little smile._

_The man came to a stop a few feet away. Mel greeted him with a tiny wave and strode over to him without a hint of her previous attitude._

_"Hey, Snow. What's up?" She tilted her head, furthering the cheery manner she had going on._

_"Nothing much, just wondering where you'd gone off to." He shrugged._

_Serah watched the interaction, unmoving a metre or so away from them. She had her hands wrapped behind her back with an innocent and quizzical expression on her face. Her head tilted ever so slightly, mimicking a confused puppy._

_"Oh I was just taking a break." Lebreau lied, "I was just about to head back."_

_"Fair enough." Snow sighed, before noticing the girl standing in the corner of his eye. "Hey, who's she? You were talking to her weren't you?"_

_Lebreau followed his gaze, and landed on Serah, who maintained her cute puppy dog pose. "Oh her. I don't know her very well. She's just a high schooler I've run into a couple of times. She was wondering what I was doing here, since it didn't look like I planned to eat anything. She's a nice kid, really kind and all that. You don't get them much these days." She smiled and shrugged, acting like she didn't think much of it. But Serah could see what she was doing; she was trying to ditch him on her so she could run off and hide again. Sometimes she was just too easy to read._

_Snow nodded, and passed her. He stopped in front of Serah and gave her a short wave. "Hi then, you guys friends I guess?"_

_She hummed, "I wouldn't say so. I don't mind talking with her though." She avoided using a name, knowing it'd come out as the wrong one. "I don't have any friends at school and not many out of it either. I suppose I just like the company." She smiled politely._

_"That's a shame; she said you're nice though." He looked back to Lebreau wondering if she'd lied to him; she'd just been about to escape._

_Lebreau shrugged. "Hey, she never mentioned that to me. I guess no one's noticed."_

_"I think it's myself." Serah cleared it up. "I get along with them all fine; people must see me speaking with people in class and think we're friends. It's nothing odd."_

_"I still think that's weird." Snow sighed. "So what's your name anyway?"_

_"Serah Farron, and yours?" She asked as well-mannered as could be. She didn't exactly like this way of behaving, but for a reason she couldn't place it didn't bother her at all during the conversation's length._

_"Snow Villiers." He answered._

_Before she could stop herself she laughed, a small little chuckle. "That's not a name!" She recalled being told years ago by Mel that one of the people she knew had such a name. She'd almost forgotten. She'd had the exact reaction then as well._

_"Hey, What's wrong with my name!?" He asked it in a yell, but he took it in good humour, as a sliver of a laugh worked its way into his voice._

_Serah had to put a hand in front of her face to stop herself from laughing, "Snow just isn't a name." Her true persona had slipped out, but in such a way it really didn't matter, nor would it be noticed._

_"Oh come on, it's still a name." He sighed, he still wasn't annoyed, but he didn't want her to stick to the point either._

_Behind them she spotted Mel stopping herself from chuckling, and coming ever close to failing horribly. "I don't think you'll persuade her you know."_

_Snow sent her a look, "Oh not you too?"_

_"Yes me too." She rolled her eyes. "Don't you have something to do?"_

_"Sort of…" He answered uncertainly. "Aren't you meant to be there too though?" He put the question onto her._

_"Ah, crap, you're right!" She exclaimed, pretending to suddenly remember. "'Kay, I'll get to it then." She dashed off, though it was really to get another moment of freedom._

_Snow turned back to Serah, and nodded, "I'll see you later then I guess. And Snow is a name."_

_"It's still not a name." She laughed, "But, hey, I've heard worse. At least you didn't decide to call yourself something as crazy as that."_

_"What?"_

_"Never mind." She shook it off. "See you later." She smiled; whether she was faking it she didn't have even the slightest clue._

_"Looking forward to it." He waved before dashing off in the same direction Mel had disappeared to._

_Serah remained where she was, thinking to herself. Going off everything Mel had said to her, she had expected him to annoy her, at least a little. And though the chat wasn't much, she was sure that would be enough to understand. But she was fine; nothing about him had annoyed her at all. She found it weird. Really weird._

_After the moment was gone, she continued on her way, not expecting to run into Mel and Snow again, since they'd hurried off at a pace much faster than hers, and it wasn't as if she knew where they were headed. She did however, contrary to her predictions, spot Mel sitting on a bench, not far from where she'd originally found her. She had no intention to start a full-blown conversation with her again, so she simply asked instead a question._

_"Oh, Mel?" She whispered quickly as she stopped in front of the wooden bench._

_"Hmm, what? I never said I'd hurry over. I'll get there eventually. Doesn't matter at all if he beats me. What do I care?" She grumbled._

_"I don't care about that. I just wanted to ask you something." The younger girl explained with a chuckle._

_"And what is that then? I'm trying to have a moment to myself you know?"_

_"It's fine, it won't take long. But I was wondering."_

_"Wondering what? I don't see the point in it." Mel interrupted her._

_Serah ignored the intrusion and continued as if it didn't happen. "I was wondering, but that guy from before, would you say he's normal?" She asked curiously._

_"Well he's annoying as all hell," Mel replied, "But yeah, I suppose I'd call him normal. Why you asking?"_

_"Oh, just a thought I had." Serah shrugged._

_"What kind of thought?" Mel raised an eyebrow._

_"Oh, I think I might be crazy." She giggled, and walked off before she could be questioned further._

* * *

><p>When Serah returned to reality, she was tucked into a ball in the middle of the room, Jame's corpse sitting neatly on the couch in front of her. She'd been crying she realised, when she noticed that her face felt sticky, and her eyes were sore. She should have expected herself to be reduced to this state. Even if she wasn't the one in control, it was undeniable that she'd attacked and brutally murdered a man who'd done her no harm. Nothing could return him to life.<p>

Eventually, she gathered herself up and cleaned up all the evidence that could lead them to who'd done it. She left the body and walls as they were. There was a point to them, they needed to be there.

She snuck out of the building, and crept around the streets to avoid being seen. She was glad she did not have a run in with the man she'd met earlier. There was nothing wrong about him, but his last comment had unnerved her greatly. He was the last thing she needed.

She made it to the shack without gathering any attention to herself. She removed her clothes and washed herself ferociously, feeling as if she was covered in her victim's crimson blood. When she was dry, she put the bloody clothes in a bucket full of soapy water in a poor attempt to soak it, to rid them of the red. She hid the bucket as well, in fear that someone would manage to find the basement.

She was shaking when she returned home; it was late, very late. Her only hope was that no one was awake or that she could make up a reasonable excuse to get out of being questioned. She decided upon that she'd been wandering around and had stupidly gotten a little bit lost after it got dark. Someone had offered to let her stay with them until it was lighter, since they were worried over her. She hadn't been allowed to refuse.

Luckily for her, no one was awake, so there was need to lie. And even if there had been, not one would notice it was a lie.

* * *

><p><strong>I love that I have a character so insane that I can write the line, 'When she was done, the headless corpse looked like a right gentlemen'. And that's normal.<strong>

**Fun fact, I severely doubt that the Serah in this story is the worse character I have. Since it's 'Arianna' who's the crazy one. **

**Now I'm going to be a shameless self-promoter and say, if anyone is interesting I'd love it if you take a look at my precious story 'Wings of Regret' since it really doesn't get the popularity it deserves (It has 600 hits compared to DL's 4,000)**

**Reviews shall be much appreciated. Since I haven't updated in months (besides REI) I haven't gotten one in months.**

**~Serah Villiers Valentine**


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Final Fantasy XIII, Crime, Tragedy